John Linton
....but,even in Eden there was a 'serpent'.
We have almost completed the changes to the basic network topology we began almost two years ago which added one or two (depending on location) direct IP feeds in to each State and the ACT and now the installation of the latest versions PeerApp caching engines firstly in Sydney in December last year, then Brisbane in late February and today the first stage of adding caching in to Melbourne. The network can now deliver 6 gbps nationally which is around 100% more than it could a year ago and the switches and routers have been upgraded to match the increased capacities.In line with these capacity upgrades we turned off the NetEnforcer IP restraints earlier this month and will physically remove the hardware within the next few weeks. All of these plans have now been implemented and, in many ways have simplified the design of the overall network and have made delivering data to any end user faster. For a company of Exetel's size this has been an expensive and complex process that, now it has been 'completed', will start all over again.
I had hoped that we could have made a decision on IP and other service supply before I left Australia but, although we received some attractive offers they did not meet the criteria we had set for acceptance. I don't know whether our acceptance criteria were too tough or we have not found the correct ways of dealing with the possible providers. It really doesn't matter because at the prices we have been offered we can't meet our future plans for residential services so before we do anything else we must review those plans in detail and, as my grandmother once said to a bewildered grandchild of tender years - "then we must cut our cloth to suit our pocket". I only allowed this to intrude into this short holiday because I received two emails this morning from possible suppliers asking me when a decision would be made.
Looking at the various performance reports available to any customer you will notice that usage across all links has fallen slightly since some 500+ of our heaviest down loading customers have been attracted to AAPT's unlimited down load plans and TPG's versions of them. you may find it surprising that so few users can affect a national network so markedly but it actually does happen as you can see - Exetel's customer base continues to increase but the net average usage per user has slightly declined over the past 6 weeks and it will be interesting to see if that trend continues. We have two proposals to increase our 6 gbps of national bandwidth by 2 gbps at zero cost to us by some interesting financial modeling which we negotiated on the basis of offering a combination of unlimited options and better pfwyu plans in the near future. I was attracted by the 'marketing potential' of that scenario but both Steve and Annette believed it was not what we needed for the longer term and we should not put short term gain ahead of longer term cost advantages. Over the last few days of not dealing with the minutiae of the business my more relaxed 'mind' has come to regard that view as more sensible than my own initial understanding of what we needed right now and moving forward. So the holiday break has served a useful business purpose as well as a personal enjoyment purpose.
I would like to have 33% more bandwidth at the current cost level now but I agree that having 50% more in 5 months at less cost would be a sensible trade off providing we can adapt our current operating plans to meet that change in scenario - and, of course, meet whatever changes will now happen in terms of what the large providers of IP services to the Australian marketplaces in which we operate will do. I'm not going to think about it any further as I still have the best part of two days left before we return to Australia and I still haven't been able to locate an antique dragon figurine I have been looking for to give to my youngest son.