John Linton ...or the recent stimulation from having a holiday has worn off.
There are more issues to deal with this month than there were last month - even allowing for the fact that I was away on holidays for the first third of last month and benefiting from having been on holidays and the 'euphoria' that brings with it for the remainder. Apart from the new concerns caused by AAPT's exit from the residential market places there are the ongoing financial incentives being offered by Telstra to make it even more attractive for current ADSL1 users to move to Telstra ADSL2 services and the sting of lesser alternatives being put in place by other ISPs to counter Telstra's newly flushed "marketing funds". Looking at the current 'offers' in the market place is becoming more and more confusing and, even with assistance that I have never had in the past I am not sure I really understand what some of the most recent changes are signaling.
Given the overall pleasantness of the sunny day yesterday and a general disinclination to look at the deluge of figures involved with the 'analysis' of ADSL2 offerings in today's marketplaces while there were other more pleasant ways of spending the time I did no work on looking at new aspects of ADSL2 plans for Exetel. It was always going to be a pretty demanding year for residential ADSL and while I was happy enough to see that the July results yesterday were better than planned I really couldn't summon up the interest to see how much more could be given away to 'chase' that dying market. I am going to be interested to see what Optus Retail now does in response to Telstra Retail's amazing cash splashes and I suppose whatever they come up with will spur some other suppliers in to similar efforts and therefore it is obviously better to wait and see what new levels of give aways are established before wasting any more time in attempting to find a way of appealing to the 'jaded palates' of the residential marketplace's "swinging buyers".
I spent 30 minutes or so earlier this morning making a list of aspects of ADSL (and related services) that would add up to a compelling set of reasons for a customer to stay with or select Exetel as their communications provider - a task I have undertaken many times in the past. It took me less time than usual to establish that it would not be possible to do what the vociferous parts of the market place want without going out of business in less than three months and wiping out over six years back and mind breaking work by a lot of dedicated individuals. It is a very difficult set of issues to be dealt with.My inclination is to concentrate on the Region 2 and Region 3 areas (which I have a personal liking for anyway) which are beyond the reach of the cash splasher's/gb givers as they are beyond their ADSL2 network reaches.
Perhaps we have finally entered the 'death zone' - the period in a product/service's life when it becomes no longer financially sensible to continue invest in it and the start of the phase of ceasing to offer it? That time for ADSL, has to come eventually and, depending on the fate of the 'NBN2' which will be known (at least for the next 3 years) in less than three weeks time, it could now be seen as being less than three years which effectively marks the start of the bail out in most if not all past circumstances. I have lived through three such events in the past and they weren't very pleasant be associated with. However they are an inevitability in technology and they are part of the excitement of the technology businesses.
Perhaps we will find new inspirations at the start of this new month and will be able to cut through the current morass of me tooism and unsustainable give away offers that dulls the mind whenever you try and make sense out of a sensible 'move forward' strategy or even quarterly plan. It is becoming very difficult to resist the urge to simply concentrate the limited resources in our possession on interesting and 'doable' aspects of the business rather than 'wasting' them on issues that may well prove to have no resolution and already past their useful life. But then...if we had ever taken that path.....we would not still be in business.
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