Thursday, October 14. 2010Data Usage Via Mobile PhonesJohn Linton We 'launched' the bundled mobile telephone offering yesterday afternoon and received the first orders some 20 minutes after the emails to Exetel's current customers started to go out. We have no idea how 'successful' or otherwise this initiative will be but it seemed to be an essential first step in countering the Telstra 'bundling assault' that we, and every other ISP has been subjected to and will continue to be subjected to between now and Christmas. One of the interesting scenarios will be just how much data is used by this type of customer. Exetel's current customers average increasingly less than 1 gbyte of combined downloads and uploads of data. However the current users are predominantly desk top or laptop based wireless broadband users....we have relatively few mobile hand set based wireless users. I have tried to keep track of wireless use in the USA and the UK/EU over the past three years and the latest article containing some information on use in the USA fortuitously appeared this morning: This was interesting because it indicates that US users download less than 500 mbytes a month with a big discrepancy between iPhone users and Android users. In Australia, from what I can gather, iPhone users dominate the market. Not that it currently concerns Exetel but it may do in the future. I have always wondered what an Australian average is of wireless broadband usage. I don't seem to be able to find any sort of believable figures anywhere so if anyone can point me to some I would be very grateful. We have yet to put in place a more reasonable deal with Optus for the provision of wireless broadband services generally and we have doubts whether we will be able to do so in the immediate future based on the zero progress to date. There may be a possibility of another option and I think that would need to become a reality for Exetel to continue to try and provide a residential wireless service beyond the end of this calendar year. Perversely, there are the first signs of our business wireless broadband services beginning to become of real interest to some very large customers....but based on the quality of the service and the ancillary services (back end control portal, grouping usage etc) rather than "a zillion megabytes for three and a half cents." We will track the progress of this 'bundled' initiative very carefully over the balance of this month to see not only what sort of customers take advantage of it but what usage they make of the data components - both the free sites and the non-free sites. It is an interesting concept that Optus has come up with and, while I don't understand it at all, I will be interested in the analysis once we have some reasonable volume of data. I have no idea what to expect as this type of user is completely unknown to me. I don't think we have got the 'marketing message' remotely correct for the bundled mobile services but we will straighten that out over the next 7 - 10 days. Our lack of knowledge and experience in this sort of "marketing" is woeful and it's quite possible we will not get it 'right' no matter how many attempts we make. However it is far too early to say whether we will meet our objective of achieving a 10% take up rate from our current ADSL base between now and the end of December. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Trackbacks
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From your own calculations, do you see the plans as better or worse value than your old equivalent Vodafone plans?
Are you going to add the new plans to your Mobile Plan Evaluation page? https://www.exetel.com.au/members/mobile_plan_evaluation.php Thanks, T. Comments (2)
Thomas,
I see them as not comparable - they are entirely different to the Vodafone plans. The new Optus 'per minute' plans are quite comparable except for the data charges which Optus charge us far more for than Vodafone did. The comparison tables will be changed by COB tomorrow. Comments (5)
Oh, I'm sorry, I meant the current VFone $10cap plan vs. the $14(-$5)=$9 new Optus cap plan.
80c/min 18c/sms up to $75 max saving vs. 99c/min 25c/sms up to $159 max saving. The Exetel to Exetel calls in the new Optus plans... does that only include New Optus SIM to New Optus SIM or is it to ANY Exetel no. i.e. to a Exetel VOIP DID/\ or an old Exetel Vodafone SIM? Comments (2)
You have gone beyond my ability to answer.
Please use the forum or call sales. I'd hate to mislead you. Comments (5)
It doesn't make sense a 1000mb on you wireless plans would cost $20 + $5 a month charge and the $35 cap you get a 1000mb + a lot of calls and $15 off your adsl. So if you use close to 1000mb a month of wireless data it is cheaper to go on the cap???
Comment (1)
Yeah I'm definitely hoping that the 1GB of data will replace my Exetel prepaid wireless usage. The free facebook will go a long way. Each facebook visit use up megabytes of data.
For what it's worth, the way I saw the value, was by discounting the CAP plan instead of the ADSL plan. i.e. ADSL = $40 /mo Mobile = $35-$15 = $20/mo Keeping the discount on the same item makes it more understandable. That gave me a much easier comparison to TPG's mobile plan that I'm currently on. Easy decision to switch back to Exetel. Best of luck to creating new business plans and marketing them. All the small companies I am in touch with get ripped off, I'm reluctant to tell them about Exetel though, people seem sensitive when you offer them something different and better. I think it is because they take it as an insult that they can't find the best deal themselves.. maybe? Comments (2)
The 3G service provided on the capped plans is provided through Optus directly, you lose your static IP, and is not as well provisioned as Exetel provisions its data services.
Comment (1)
John...
Above's comment about getting a lesser service is a worry as you've always said you wouldn't go there. I've been using an Optus based data service through Exetel for over a year. Would there be any difference between the provisioning of the Optus based service I have now and the new capped plans? Comment (1)
Exetel has no control over the delivery of any service on the Optus capped plans.
We are offering them because they are much lower cost than we could provide them for and offer Exetel users very good overall value. Comments (5)
I just had a thought after reading the comments by Optus here, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/nbn-is-financially-viable-says-optus/story-e6frg9hx-1225938048763
I was thinking that you have continually said that Australia was 12-18 months behind the EU/US for wireless. But now the NBN has changed the carrier's motivations. Telstra/Optus/Vodafone no longer want to go at breakneck speeds to convert wired users into wireless users. Why invest in wireless yourself, when access to a very expensive wired solution at a small cost is available? Not much point aggressively competing in the wireless space if there isn't a great need to do so. If average users are mobile users, less that 1GB seems all they desire. Not much point reducing the $/MB if consumers aren't using mobile devices to use large amounts of content. Comments (2)
Just updated my site with your plans (I am a reseller), however the Order button don't seem to be working on your site (for the mobile plans). Maybe I am missing something.
FYI I am a reasonable user of data on my mobile (android) and I would use 300 - 400MB per month. This is mainly social media access, email and occasional browsing. Comment (1)
Wireless data usage:
So if you calculated wireless broadband downloaded is 13,330TB and the majority (36% of all subs) is mobile wireless ie 3,455,000 users as opposed to 33,000 fixed wireless then the average mobile user downloads then that is about 3.7GB per mobile wireless user. This is way above what the exetel users does ie less than 1GB. Am I missing something here? or are mobile wireless subs only about 1/6 of all mobile users. In my direct family we have 5 mobiles and only yet 2 use mobile wireless broadband. I used data from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/8153.0Jun%202010?OpenDocument Comment (1)
I can only use data from Exetel's records - which I know to be true.....although the sample is small and skewed.
Using the huge samples from the two major US carriers (as reported in the WSJ) the averages are less than 500 mbytes and less than 400 mbytes respectively. Nothing to argue with there - they are, reported, facts. Exetel's average usage is skewed upwards because very few of our users actually use our services in mobile handsets - overwhelmingly they are laptop, note book and PC users. Comments (5)
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