Sunday, May 16. 2010Looking Into The Immediate Future........John Linton .....is getting more difficult with the 'mists' seeming to be thickening into the first signs of 'fogs'. I spent some time yesterday thinking about how we get through the next six months or so given that the changes in the ADSL and wireless marketplaces are more likely to intensify than abate. I have been looking at what we could possibly do in the wireless market places since February and each time I get some sort of idea of what is happening...it immediately changes. At the current price offers by the two major carriers are based at $10.00 as far as I can see and our buy pieces are far more than that - not to mention a very high monthly connection fee. I know that the average usage for an Exetel 2 gbyte user is seldom much above 1 gbyte and if you have the size user bases that Telstra and Optus have doubtless that average drops. We need to increase our wireless broadband user base and we need to do it far more rapidly than we have been able to do that so far. We are beginning to make some progress in the business marketplace and we will continue those efforts and try and make much more of the customer portal we have developed. While we are beginning to get a steady stream of 10 unit sales to businesses we really need a steady and increasing stream of the 50+ unit sales that such a service requires. So we will put more effort into business wireless broadband as it is an integral part of the overall business 'push' and will get easier if we continue to grow the business data service numbers as we are achieving at the moment. Our problem is with residential wireless broadband and the pricing from the carriers I mentioned before. We were hoping that MoIP would be a big impetus in increasing our wireless broadband sales (particularly now we have an iPhone MoIP app on the Apple AppStore and that may well prove to be the case over time but it isn't helping us much at the moment. We have talked through the opportunities of offering a 'free' wireless service with new ADSL applications but even the most optimistic estimates cannot make a profit out of such an offer - at least not at our buy prices. So it needs yet more thought and some sort of inspiration which I appear to be very short of at the moment. The problems of finding effective strategies for wireless broadband seem almost trivial compared to finding even one effective strategy for ADSL - at least for me. We did realise last year that the ways we had offered ADSL for the first six years of our existence had to change but we have struggled to find new approaches that will produce the sort of results we need to achieve over the next 6 - 9 months. It will take some real inspiration and a lot of application to find sensible ways forward from here and, so far, those ways , or even one way, have completely eluded us. I don't imagine its any easier for any other provider of our sort of size and, perhaps, it isn't any easier for any provider irrespective of their size - Telstra's well publicized problems illustrate one aspect of how long held pricing/plan policies finally run out of puff. So - a lot of work to be done in a very short time. One area where all our plans and 'strategies' don't seem to need any changes (and I realise that's a foolish statement just begging for severe punishment) is our business data services which after a record April are booming in the first two weeks of May with record weekly orders in both weeks and ever growing well qualified prospect lists. We continue to slowly add new sales people (we now have 14 with the first 12 graduating from their trainee period well within the planed time) and will keep adding sales people as fast as we can find 'recruits' that meet our very demanding selection criteria. This is one constraint I hadn't anticipated but it is a reality and one we need to address before it becomes a serious hindrance. So I didn't make any progress yesterday and will give myself a rest from those activities today and start again tomorrow. PS: Latest 'independent view of the 'NBN2': Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
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Having just cancelled my Exetel ADSL1 8192 service effective at the end of the month due to moving, I will be interested in any wireless improvements if you can secure a better buy price.
I currently have an Exetel WI A post paid service. But look forward to a cost effective ADSL alternative above the current 5GB wireless plan, if that ever becomes viable? I'm reluctant to reconnect to the Telstra PSTN again once we find a new property. Paul Comment (1)
Currently, Optus does not allow Exetel to offer wireless plans greater than, I think it is, 8 gb but we cannot begin to provide a cost/effective service at that level.
As I said we are looking at it and will make some sort of decision in the next few days. Comments (5)
HSPA is a bit of a Catch 22 for you at the moment unfortunately.
As an agent, there are a few customers I've had to let go because they either wanted more than 5GB or they didn't want to run the risk of Excess fees. Two things come to mind 1 - Virgin is probably getting a better deal than you, unless they are choosing to offset the cost of big users with the profit of the small. 2 - Virgin appears to have real-time accounting allowing them to switch off excess users immediately. Re 1 - well I don't think there's much you can do, as you're probably bound by whatever Optus has offered you. Re 2 - A tricky one, as you want to charge for excess usage to add profit to the 2GB and 5GB plans, but in doing so those plans become unattractive to the less attentive audience. I've had a user use 4GB via an HSPA router over a number of days and not get an excess fee until the router was powered off. In my dialup days, the connecting device would send interim RADIUS packets every 5 minutes so that when a limit was reached, the service could be switched off in real time. Perhaps you can check with Optus is such interim data can be collected and used - moreso for router user safety than for capping as such. I don't have any solutions to the overall pricing issues. Nonetheless the PAYGs continue to roll off the shelf out here You're doing something right, there! Comments (2)
I don't think there is any reason the wireless usage meter can't be updated as frequently as the ADSL usage meter - I'll check.
Offering Virgin's 7gb for $49.99 is a very real challenge - above an average usage of 3gb we would lose money. Please give me any recommendation for a salable plan and we will consider it. Comments (5)
Virgin has a few catches that most people don't see.
All traffic transits Sydney (my pet hate with any ISP) and they limit P2P traffic to 32kbps at all times. There are also limits to how much you can use the service. Comments (2)
Interesting - do you know of any other restrictions?
Comments (5)
Having used the service, there seem to be some other minor things going on.
Access to arbitrary SMTP services is denied, DNS lookups are intercepted and there is a lot of DPI going on. The T&Cs on the website make statements regarding the extent of shaped access and limit the number of times a customer can top-up their account with additional download blocks. This clause in particular puzzles me - it directly translates into punishing customers for using the service. Comments (2)
I'll have a closer look.
Comments (5)
must have been a glitch in the matrix there somewhere, I've personally had the "Your excess usage charge has more than $25. Please make interim usage payment for $25
Each time you reach $25 in excess usage charges in the month, you will be asked to make an interim $25 payment." message and my HSPA service was connected 24/7 via a Netcomm 3G router, the message came pretty much straight after the download hit that amount Comment (1)
Have a look at your session times in the Exetel members area. Here's an example:
2010-05-10 16:46:51 45.85 484.00 78:04:31 (A 78 hour session.) I could be wrong however, perhaps the usage meters do update, but we only see session times here. I haven't 100% verified this. Comments (2)
If you are looking for ideas on how to expand your wireless take-up, why not ask your users?
Regards, Harry. Comment (1)
1 GB prepaid for 2 GB's/NEW/bonus - for nighttime use, and Bang..there you got yourself a '3 gb-plan' for A$20.00
Now if you pause on that for a moment you come to realise just how readily the geeks/night owl/student/ market segments would snap such an offer up, the offer of a 5:00 AM '+/- 4hours' disignated time zone. And of no real harm to the network (caused by a'3 gb for the price of 1 gb' supplied,1am-zone) this would permit users to save the good/ 1gb/ stuff up (purposed for Moip & other appliances) for use in daylight. Now I am aware of Exetels situation. . . -No shaping permitted; - higher than 8 gb disallowed; -Do not compete with us /next to zero cash to splash around; -$15gb for you, $10/gb ours..for go to market 'sale'ability; -now just find 1millioncustomers" and we'll negotiate on price (-then perhaps allow offpeak to utilise spare transit.? ?) . .So, the more I read of these unfortunate conditions the more dirtier and difficult appears the business of selling wireless at a layer2 ie. similar to approaching T$ for a bit more space to move, like getting 'blood from a stone'. But then, big telcos being telcos are unlikely to change their mode soon, so there probably is not much one can say/suggest that would bolster sales for you - beyond factoring in extra value, in e.g. a unique offpeak time zone. Comment (1)
Even more to worry about is the Telstra NextG Ipad plans.
They seem to be the ultimate in 3g connectivity. Superior network/coverage. Prepaid (no contract at all) For $30 or higher montly spends, pricing is effectively only $10 per GB and if you are a higher usage customer - as low as $8.30GB. Obviously some of the higher end virgin/optus/voda plans are cheaper than this - but the gap is closing between these companies, and i doubt there is much disagreement to the better network. If these plans are able to be used on non-ipad devices, it will be interesting to see how the market adapts. Comment (1)
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