Friday, December 3. 2010Unlimited ADSL AND Unlimited Telephone Calls For $60.00?John Linton Exetel has been using VoIP in its Australian operations for over four years now and in its Colombo offices ever since we set up the company there. As well as using VoIP we heavily use MoIP and only have one or two PSTN lines in both offices for 'testing purposes'. While there are now many other reasons that improve our operations that can't as easily be done on 'standard' telephone lines, the main reasons we use VoIP rather than PSTN/ISDN services is of course cost. I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of residential VOIP users only decide to use VoIP because of cost. So here's the thing - what happens if the majority of PSTN calls a residential user makes were 'free'? Both Telstra and Optus Retail have moved towards this type of offer and it is something that Exetel have been considering but have never been in a position to do. I was talking to one of the people who 'analyse' the, publicly listed telcos who, quite rightly, took the view that TPG's $60.00 unlimited ADSL plans for '$30.00' plus '$30.00' for the phone line were very effectively combating Telstra's wave after wave of "welcome home" offers but that their call charges were too high. I pointed out to him that anyone who thought the call charges were too high would use VoIP but agreed that the majority wouldn't do that so the profit from voice calls at those rates would make a healthy contribution. So is the 'challenge' for today's home communications provider to meet TPG's price point of $60.00 for unlimited downloads and 'trump' its very expensive telephone call charges by offering unlimited local, STD and calls to Optus mobiles? Given the apparent appearance of network under provisioning by TPG perhaps unlimited everything is going to become the offer de jour? It will be interesting to see what Telstra now does with wire line telephone calls and, to a lesser extent, how Optus reacts.....and in a very minor sense how companies like Exetel can 'react'. Another indication of falling results by 'service industries' is explained here: http://www.theage.com.au/business/services-sector-weakens-in-november-20101203-18ioj.html We have talked to both Telstra and Optus about how they/we can improve our residential ADSL offers in the new year but have not made much progress. However there may be ways we can adapt our various services in terms of bundling wire line based services with ADSL and unlimited telephone calls to be able to offer unlimited ADSL and unlimited voice calls and improve on TPG's current offer in terms of 'free' components which have no embedded 'sting in the tail'. If all local/STD/CTM Optus calls were free and the customer could use VoIP (if he she were capable of doing that) for CTM Telstra/Vodafone then why would anyone buy a TPG service? Ihave previously mentioned that "free" was the only offer that was better than "unlimited" in general terms in consumer marketing but I really have no basis for making that statement other than personal observation over the years (the number of times I have seen it used). It will be interesting to see in this increasingly VoIP world how standard telephone call charging changes? Perhaps rather than "free", all PSTN telephone calls will be charged at 10 cents per call/untimed? I don't know whether we would be able to make such an 'offer' work given the costs that the carriers would charge but it's a thought. Personally I doubt that "unlimited downloads" would appeal to the sort of person who would like unlimited calls so there would be some guess work (oops - I meant research/analysis) to be done particularly on the usage patterns of our current customers. But I really do think that 'free' is a better way to go than unlimited. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Trackbacks
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The problem with your proposed $60 plan is that it makes your other plans look silly.
You have a 100gb plan for $53 and for an extra $7 you get unlimited calls and double the data. Your $58 unlimited plan is effectively 200gb or less for most users and for $2 more you get unlimited calls? It sort of makes you think that it was Optus not Telstra that have been ripping us off for years. Comment (1)
These plans would only be available on Optus ports though so you are looking at offering the best of what you can, where you can I guess
You wouldn't not do this just because you couldn't offer it everywhere Comments (2)
"It sort of makes you think that it was Optus not Telstra that have been ripping us off for years."
What a sad view of a pretty attractive initiative. Comments (5)
How about including a component of free calls each month which was something I had with my plan when I joined a year or so ago?
Comments (2)
Unlimited local, STD and CTMOptus doesn't cover that?
Comments (5)
Yes sure does but I meant maybe it doesn't need to be unlimited!
Comments (2)
In case people don't realise, TPG's offer isn't completely PSTN. It is analogue copper to the exchange and then VOIP from the exchange. In other words, they fake PSTN and provide an equivalent to an ATA at the exchange which sits on their IP network and connects to their VOIP server. So if TPG's IP network falls down, both your ADSL and your phone go.
Who knows what happens when there is congestion on the back-haul. (I'd hope they prioritise that VOIP traffic.) I'm still waiting for someone to sell the virtues of PSTN. Perhaps there aren't any! I would have thought though that Network in PSTN is more robust. No DOS attacks and I would expect it to be better provisioned. If you can do true PSTN plus unlimitted ADSL for $60, you're doing better than TPG. Comments (3)
Well I'm concluding from some strong evidence. There is nothing direct from TPG but then if they were explicit, they wouldn't get away with the call costs!
So the evidence is as follows. The conditions explicitly say "TPG Home Phone does not support Fax, EFTPOS, Back to Base alarms, Foxtel program purchase and analogue modems." This would be odd for a pure PSTN service but completely understandable for a system that partially uses VOIP. Then http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1491532 has a discussion about these plan where people assert that it uses VOIP from the exchange and the TPG representatives do not rebut that claim. Also see http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1391235 Also the service wasn't available at all exchanges they have DSLAMs but was becoming available - indicating upgrades were necessary to their hardware. Unless they are getting into PSTN, VOIP seems the answer. While none of those on its own is sufficient, together at least for me it puts it beyond reasonable doubt! Comments (3)
Sorry that last bit was unclear. The "unless they are getting into PSTN" was meant to mean they seem to be deploying their own hardware.
To add to this, there different order types. The interesting things are: 1) For people with existing lines, any shared ADSL2 service needs to be cancelled first. 2) For people with a ULL connection, they can transfer directly. It seems they are using a ULL and connecting the copper direct to their hardware. Existing phone lines need to be clear of codes. As I doubt they are installing their own PSTN, VOIP seems reasonable - especially with the other evidence. Comments (3)
Hi John,
why does Exetel seems to frown upon the 2 year lock-in period. Telstra seem to see great wisdom into locking its customers into 2 year contracts, is Exetel missing out by not using longer lock-in periods to reward customers with lower prices. cheers bill Comment (1)
We have always seen a 24 month contract as inadvisable for customers.
Maybe we will go down that path if we ever abandon the view that we should do the best we can for our customers rather than ourselves. Comments (5)
I don't even know if this is workable but here goes
24 month contracts are a problem mostly because technology changes so fast, prices keep dropping and deals keep getting better, people probably don't feel comfortable with locking in for 24 months as history shows that within 12 months the deals are much better, from a providers point of view having a 24 month commitment from a customer would be preferable to a 12 month deal where they would likely reassess their options and possibly change providers if you could have some sort of two tier agreement where a customer could commit to 24 months but be entitled to take a new deal at the 12 month mark to whatever then suits their needs, is market competitive perhaps Maybe too hard to deal with the contract side of things I guess, and of course it's impossible to know what deals may be on offer in 12 months time but if there was some way to be able to automate getting a contract repeat commitment from the customer for each 12 months would be a good thing I suppose in a way it would be just trying to automate what the outbound sales team in Sri Lanka is doing now Comments (2)
I'm confused.
Exetel's local calls are $0.15 (first 5 minutes)... But I cant find how much is costs after 5 mins ? You dont give enough information on the site to compare the deal. The price for internation calls, exetel is better. no problem there. The tpg call caps make their national call rates better at the cost of having to redial. I'll call that a draw with a bias towards tpg for the users who think nothing of the redial part. The very expensive claim you make seems only to apply to the international call rates atm. Comments (2)
There is no time limit on the call lengths on the offer.
You are confusing it with the pre-selected call plans. You can't compare Exetel's PSTN call services with TPG's VoIP call services - which often don't work at all according to reports from users....but you would know that better than I would. It seems TPG's under provisioning is really showing up when people try and use their $30.00 fake telephone lines where you can't hide the lack of bandwidth. In any event what sort of idiot wants to end a call before they have finished talking to save a cent or two? Only a total self abuser I would have thought. You can't find full details of the plans on the web site because the plans haven't yet been offered. Comments (5)
Okay, no time limit... but I was questioning the cost. If the cost if a flat 15 cents per call... what's with the 'first 5 mins' stuff ??
Reports from users ? Where at WP ? lol. If I said I had a problem with tpg services, I would be lying. Actually is dollars not a cent or two. "You can't find full details of the plans on the web site because the plans haven't yet been offered. " eh ? https://www.exetel.com.au/voice_r/residential_online_form.php Comments (2)
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