Tuesday, December 29. 2009Christmas Break Over - Back To Work For SomeJohn Linton A four day weekend at the end of the year followed after three working days by a three day weekend is a pleasant way of ending the year especially when Christmas Day falls on a Saturday. I suppose the downside is the shortest 'working week' in the year is available for all of the things you let slide leading up to Christmas....which, when I reviewed my 'to do list' this morning was a lot more than I thought. This year was the first year that we had support and sales telephone and email and ticket answering services on Christmas Day and Boxing day as well as the intervening week end days and we have been recruiting in December to extend the weekend shifts to the full 8.30 am to 9.30 pm hours seven days a week which we will put in place before the end of January 2010 assuming everything goes to plan. All being well, we will extend support hours to 24 x 7 before the end of June 2010 as we move to providing a different range of services utilising Sri Lankan engineering personnel. We have never considered that ADSL residential users needed 24 x 7 service but as we will need 24 x 7 for other services it makes sense to offer that to ADSL users as well. The main tasks to be completed over the next few days are the revisions to the business ADSL plan, the revisions to the wireless broadband plans and a re-look at the residential ADSL2 plans - plus agreeing the new business remuneration and commission plans and implementing the new caching services. We will also do some interviewing to hire the first 4 business sales trainees for January as well as tidying up some other personnel management and measurement issues. It doesn't sound that much when you spell it out in a sentence or two but there is a fair bit of work to be done in relatively few hours. Apart from the odd year or two, once a decade on average, I have always used the second half of December to ensure whatever I have been responsible for is as well prepared as it could be for the start of the new calendar year. I have noticed over a very long time that few people avail themselves of this time to work sensibly and I have always regarded that as a significant waste of opportunity....each to their own I suppose. There are obviously more people than me who regard the last two weeks of December as being useful times to catch up with people who are difficult to reach at other times and I have received a 'deluge' of emails containing product and service offers and requests for meetings this week over the past 10 days. Apart from interviewing prospective sales trainees I have two appointments on each of the next three days and two conference phone calls to discuss 'opportunities'. Perhaps it's also a sign that business is tougher for some people at the moment than it has been in previous years though our December ADSL1 and ADSL2 sales will be up on December 2008 by over 20% and the combined ADSL1, ADSL2 and Wireless broadband sales will be up more than 50% on 2008 - so the likely toughness of the marketplaces isn't yet showing up in our figures.....but then I didn't expect the numbers to drop just yet....the first few months of 2010 may well be a totally different story when the current round of 'price adjustments' by the larger ISPs don't produce the required results and they start on round 2 of that unwinnable war for an increased residential ADSL market share. The engineers and provisioning have a 'big' six months ahead of them re-dimensioning the network to match the changed objectives of the company and the delivery of new services in new areas and we have an equally challenging time in finding the right way of delivering wireless services as well as changing the emphasis on marketplaces to deliver very ambitious growth while ensuring our current customers continue to benefit from the likely downward movements in pricing across a range of services and products. I think the rush to offering unlimited residential ADSL2 (and perhaps ADSL1) will be an interesting process to watch unfold over the next three months. Time to hit the road and make something happen. PS: I am considering making this blog only accessible from Exetel IP ranges as it is primarily aimed at Exetel customers and it seems around the right time to do that. My main reason for making that change is that I'm unsure how much time I will have from now onwards to write a daily blog as I will switch my recording of the ups and downs of playing my part in running Exetel to a different medium which I think will be more useful in achieving the objectives that the blog methodology has partially achieved over the past year or so.
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
Comments
Display comments as
(Linear | Threaded)
Just noticed your new ADSL2 plan fees with the $0.50/GB overage charges.
It appears that (for the naked plan) the 60GB plan is the cheapest, with 75GB on this plan costing $67.50, 100GB costing $80 and 200GB costing $130 per month. These monthly rates were probably fine when the overage charge was $1.50/GB. Comment (1)
Hasn't your blog received a lot of useful feedback from Exetel customers accessing it via non-Exetel connections and non-Exetel customers alike?
Not to mention the various businesses/suppliers which have made offers as a result of reading your blog from non-Exetel connections? I'd hope the positive would generally outweigh the negative. Keep writing as often as you can, we'll be here to read and comment unless you restrict us! Comment (1)
Your comments are correct.
To put it in perspecive I started this blog as a bet and continued it because of its very real commercial value. It is certainly valuable to Exetel and it is rewarding to me personally for all the trains of conversation it has generated with so many different people. However it does take time to write (an average of 40 minutes each day these days) and that time should almost certainly now be used for other purposes. Comments (3)
John,
Whilst restricting you blog to Exetel IP Addresses would only cause me a minor inconvenience, I'll think there would be continuing value in making it avilable to all IP Addresses even if you do swutch to a different medium for your daily musings. Les Comment (1)
I do hope you choose to leave the blog open to all IP ranges - as someone else who works within the industry I do find your blog an fascinating read for alternative perspectives on how things are going.
Best of luck with your TIO case! Comment (1)
Hi Matthew,
If you want to continue reading the blog you could always just sign up for an Exetel service. They're very good value! I wish Exetel luck with the TIO case as well but I doubt they'll really want to spend as much money in legal fees as the TIO would be willing to invest in ensuring their survival. Comment (1)
Unfortunately I have only just found your blog a month ago. I was mindlessly surfing the web, killing time while stuck in a hospital bed for a few weeks.
I find it a great read and an insight into the workings of an ISP. I followed John's musings while he was at Swiftel and even bought shares in the company as it started to grow (wish I had sold them soon after though...). I swapped to Exetel not long after it started and continued to use them till about 18 months ago when ADSL could not provide the upload speeds I was after. Exetel was not able to provide ADSL2+ at Hammersly Exchange (HAMS), so I reluctantly moved to Amnet (happy with their level of service though). I would love to re-join Exetel as I was happy with the service and think the package of extras they provide is really worthwhile. I keep checking every few months with Exetel Sales to see if they can tell me when HAMS will be equipped with ADSL2+, but there still is no word. I understand how long it must take you to provide a blog each day and think it's fine to reduce the number of postings you make, but please don't block non Exetel IP's from following your wise thoughts. Peter. Comment (1)
I'd really like to continue reading this blog. While this particular comment is from an exetel IP, this is not always the case.
Thanks Comment (1)
Not sure where this topic started from, but I would also like to put in a vote for John to keep posting his daily Blog, and for it to be made available to everyone.
I personally decided to move to Exetel after reading this Blog, and liking what John had to say. So another way of describing this Blog is as a very powerful advertising tool for Exetel........ Comment (1)
I read it from work (a bigpond IP address) but have several Exetel services, so not too big a problem for me but I do think restricting it would be counter-productive to Exetel and to part of the whole purpose of the blog in the first place.
I truly hope it continues for many years yet! Comment (1)
I usually read your blog at work. Rarely have time at home where I do have an Exetel connection so would prefer it be left open or perhaps make it only accessible from the Members Facility page?
Comment (1)
I am an Exetel customer but usually read your blog from non-Exetel IP's, and have your RSS feed integrated in to Google Reader. Locking it down to Exetel IP ranges would require a fair bit more effort to read your musings - I find it reassuring to read what is going through the mind of Exetel management!
Comment (1)
|
Calendar
QuicksearchArchivesCategoriesBlog AdministrationExternal PHP Application |