Sunday, November 29. 2009What Would Happen If You Built A DSLAM Network........John Linton ...and they did begin to come but then they left and never came back? Perhaps the Kevin Costner character was wrong and the whole concept was just Hollywood Schmaltz? I completed most of the work I am responsible for on the new Wireless Broadband business brochure and the revised wireless broadband web site (particularly the business web site). It seems to me that I have spent most of the last almost three years trying to 'assemble' the correct components of a 'killer' 3G/4G wireless offering in anticipation of the fade out of the ADSL opportunities in Australia and I haven't succeeded in doing that after all the effort that has been expended on it....but it is at least closer than it was when we started. I looked at yet another 'magic box' for residential users on Friday which, like the one we have sourced from the PRC, now has all of the physical features needed at the pricing we have specified (at least they 'promised' to meet the required price - a bit of a difference I suppose) but once again, just as your hopes begin to rise that the 'quest' is finally over, they quickly gloss over the fact that the VoIP firmware is not yet available......soooooo.....close, but not close enough. The magic box is essential to remove the ludicrously high charges made for HSPA modems by Optus to us and also the sheer inelegance of such a solution for the home user. (The cost of HSPA modems for business users is becoming a 'thing of the past' with more and more of high end laptops/notebooks having multi-frequency wireless chip sets on the MB and mobile hand sets not needing a modem at all). Doubtless, when all the early advantage is completely lost (we had expected to have had this box some 18 months ago), we will finally find a suitable product but until that time it is back to the search if we can summon the energy. The Yagi antennae have proved a big hit as they did deliver on their promise to allow 'remoter' users to connect to towers as far away as 30 kms and at one third, or less, of the price of other Yagis available from various suppliers in Australia and that is heartening as it too was a relatively long search. The 'magic box' remains necessary to remove the cost to a residential user of having to buy a separate wireless modem and pay the high cost of such devices in Australia (unlike the UK where the cost when we were there in August was 10/15 pounds including a gigabyte of data just to put the Australian situation in its correct context). While we have found a source of a wireless modem at less than half the cost Optus currently charge us (with 4 times the speed) it isn't the right solution for the residential market and I don't particularly want to go down that path. We have also been considering changing carriers in 2010 as we have had a series of unpleasant experiences (commercial not network) in attempting to build our residential 'country' wireless business based on buying network connectivity from Optus and we see every chance that those unpleasant experiences will be repeated in 2010 as Exetel move farther away from the ways that Optus prefer to conduct their wholesale business. Of course, in Australia, the options in providing wireless broadband services are extremely limited and that may well not prove possible but, if the business wireless broadband market can be sensibly addressed by Exetel (and we believe it can) then perhaps the limitations of Vodaphone's non-capital city coverage will not be such a barrier as it is for residential markets....however that's the least of our concerns at the moment. As I said at the start of 2009 the future growth of the residential ADSL market is reaching its end and the future of ADSL will be fraught with price wars in the struggles to maintain customer numbers let alone grow those numbers by those ISPs that are dependent on ADSL revenue and profits. Unfortunately, Telstra holds all the 'aces' in that scenario by maintaining ADSL1 prices at artificial highs and reducing its own ADSL2 prices to 'force' its own customers to migrate to ADSL2 (where it is the standout non-participant in the ADSL2 'churn' process). By doing this they 'lock out' their own customer base as a source of growth for those ISPs who desire to 'lure' BigPond customers to their ADSL2 services. In the meantime the other ISPs will continue to fight among themselves to take each other's customers and make less progress (and profit) than they are committed to. You didn't have to be too bright to see this coming and that any business plan based on residential ADSL was not going to be a pretty sight round about now. Maybe I'm wrong, it certainly wouldn't be the first time, but I'll take any bet that for any communications company to grow in 2010 onwards it isn't going to be via residential ADSL. There are at least three other mainstream communications services that will deliver increasing growth and, as far as I can see, that's where sensible efforts and investments need to be made - ADSL is in its sunset years and the barbarians, if not yet at the gate, are clearly visible on the inner hill tops. (apologies to Bryan Burrough and John Helyar) Trackbacks
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"Who moved my cheese?" by Dr Spencer Johnson.
Seems to cover a lot of the ground you are referring to above. A delightful little book you might enjoy reading (if you have the time!)! Harry. Comment (1)
I think I feel sick.
What's going to happen to us low end ADSL Exetel customers out in the sticks who did what you wanted and went to HSPA? Pray there's still a port available to go back to? I'm so happy with my HSPA sercvice and VOIP over 3G that I've had my landline disconnected. In a small country town with a growing population, that might not even still be available. Needless to say, the Vodaphone signal hear is next to useless. Even for a phone call. Should I be looking at my options? Comments (2)
Exetel has spent over half a million dollars on developing a "Country Broadband" wireless solution based on the Optus network and is still investing money trying to find the 'perfect' (and low priced) magic box to deliver the last piece of that 'jigsaw'.
Apart from some scummy actions by a couple of scummy companies (which was my fault for being naive) which we need to recover from we are happy with the physical delivery of the country services and will do everything possible to improve on them. I have never wavered in my believe of the last almost three years that Optus HSPA is the ideal solution for regional and rural Australia. Comments (3)
Thanks John, your reply reads like you're still committed, though the blog post says you might change to Voda.
Unless you have info that they'll be doing something like matching the Optus service, clearly many of us won't be able to stay no matter how much we'd like to. It seems there are quite a few Exetel city users as well who think as I do that Vodafone HSPA is sub standard, and they won't be able to stay either. So do we have anything to worry about? Comment (1)
I also read the occasional comment about 'inadequate' Vodafone service in capital cities. I have used a Vodafone mobile since we started providing mobile services over five years ago and have never had an issue anywhere in Australia.
We will test the Vodafone data service over the next couple of months in all capital cities and yhe twenty largest 'regional' cities/towns and form our own, factual views. If the results are positive then we may well use a non-Optus mobile data service for a large business solution which would make no difference to the Optus solution for the country broadband and residential offerings. Either way, we try our best to run Exetel based on facts - or what we consider to be facts. Comments (3)
I wasn't talking about mobile. We also have a couple of your Vodafone mobile services, and they're fine so long as there is good coverage. But that is not every where in the country and that's a fact.
And please accept my apologies for getting off on the wrong track and not being able to read where you mentioned changing providers for business solutions only. I read residential country broadband. So all is well in Exetel HSPA world. Comments (2)
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