Sunday, February 13. 2011A Renewed Effort On Wireless Services.......John Linton ......or there really is no fool like an old fool? I have always believed that wireless broadband was going to play an increasingly important role in the delivery of data services to residential end users. Not exactly an exclusive insight in to technology development but at least it ensured that Exetel has made ongoing efforts to provide alternatives to the views that only 'NBN2' will provide a suitable transit for Australian's future data needs. To date, Exetel has made little progress in making wireless services a major part of our customer base or revenue but it does continue to increase and the customer base is very stable with many of our earliest wireless users still with us. We continue to try and find ways to provide wireless services to more lower download users and we will release new wireless plans next week. The new wireless plans will be simple re-sell of Optus own Layer 3 retail plans with the differentiation being we will use the Optus wholesale commissions to reduce the cost to the customer and will also add the benefits of the Exetel inclusions, very good wireless support and back end user facilities. By doing this we can offer 5 gbytes of 'traffic' for $25.00 a month which would currently exceed the traffic requirements of 35% of our current users at 50% of our current pricing. I would think that this new lower price per gb level coupled with the ongoing upgrading of the Optus broadband network would have a wider appeal than our current premium services - which are still selling very solidly with almost no churn away. Irrespective of what vested interests or just plain stupid/pig ignorant people may say the steady progress of wireless broadband is inevitable as prices decrease and speeds increase. A colleague sent me a slightly more detailed version of the US position yesterday: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/021011-obama-goal-98-percent-of.html which gives a sensible view of where 4G/LTE is going and how all encompassing it's usefulness is 'national' broadband deployments. In terms of the "tower danger" alarmist statements of the equally ignorant the future technologies use much smaller and far less environmentaly intrusive devices: It also is a chilling indication of the dangers of picking 'winners' when making investment decisions. Both Optus and Telstra will continue their 'war' with each other to build market shares in the various mobile markets one of which is, of course, mobile data services. At $25.00 for 5 gbytes the latest wireless broad band offer would exceed the requirements of a minimum of 35% of Exetel's current ADSL users and, in the case of the ADSL1 users also exceed the speeds they have available to them. In case that statement didn't register: In February 2011 35% Of Exetel's Current Users Can Get More Downloads At Greater Speeds For Less Monthly Cost than Any Other Supplier Including Exetel Can Offer Via ADSL. They can save even more money by ditching the PSTN line as an added bonus. To put that statement in true perspective try thinking back two and a half years to the speed/price/availability/reliability/latency of wireless broadband services and compare it to today. THEN go forward two and a half years and guesstimate what the price/speed/latency/availability will be then. If you were a vaguely sensible person with some basic understanding of markets and technologies you would pause for quite a while before making pronouncements on what you would use a fibre connection for and what you would use a wireless connection for. Unless you were very, very stupid you would reach the conclusion that the only advantage that fibre might have, for residential users, would be for 'entertainment' services currently delivered over FoxTel and similar services. While no-one can really accurately predict the future in terms of such complex scenarios involving as they do user perception and marketing lies the reality is certainly going to be that some percentage of data users will increasingly prefer lower cost wireless services to any sort of expensive wire line services. The inflexibility of a government monopoly will make that a certainty that has decided that speed is more important than price for 100% of all residential data users simply ignores market reality - based on 4,000 years of end user buying decision making. I will be very interested to see how 5 gbyte wireless broadband plans for $25.00 fare against ADSL2 in the market places of early 2011. Trackbacks
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What I really need to know is what happens just after 5GB is reached. This new price point is excellent, but if it then hits $50 a GB for example; it's dangerous to use without scrutiny. If on the other hand it drops to 64K like BigPOnd, then I'm quite excited, as at last it's something that competes again.
I assume no fixed IP if it's level 3? I suppose I should ask also if there is any commission on this, as it's bound to come up. I'll also be interested to see how you market it alongside the existing plans - ie 'standard 3G vs premium 3G' with an MRTG to matchh? Comments (2)
Once an included limit is reached then an excess is charged at 6 cents a megabyte. But, I would have thought people who use 2 - 3 gb a month wouldn't have a problem with 5gb.
No IP - it's a layer 3 service. There will be agent commission. As we don't have access to Layer 3 infrastructure that would be difficult to do. Comments (3)
Hi John, I would like to go completely wireless to get rid of telstra landline charges, however the speeds available through my local tower have dropped so much that it would not be a viable option.
Results of speedtest conducted recently; ADSL 1500k plan 1.32Mb/sec ; wireless 0.32Mb/sec The tower is about 500m away. A friend who is a computer tech. confirmed that two of his customers were going back to adsl due to congestion on this tower. I live in a small country town, so proximity of tower makes for good mobile reception. I make these comments not to denigrate wireless but to lead into the question; what can be done about congestion on mobile phone towers? Comment (1)
It seems to be a dramatic over subscription.
The answer is for the carrier to install more back haul and tower capacity which will undoubtedly happen. Comments (3)
"what can be done about congestion on mobile phone towers? "
Put a wireless tower in every street? I wonder what the health benefits might be. Comment (1)
Better equipment mounted on the tower solves that issue.
Comments (3)
They could be positive actually - since mobile devices only transmit as much power as necessary to reach the nearest tower. If the tower is closer there's a logarithmic decline in transmission power for both parties, and thus less radiation and higher speeds.
Comments (2)
I wonder whether the purported rise in 'usage' of this wireless tech will be equally as significant to that measured in the June'10 statistics...opens up ABS database...
13 330 TB (June 2010) minus 14 251 TB (Dec 2009) = - 921 TB ? Okay, try again. Comment (1)
Without equipment upgrades, many consumers will be limited to 3.6mbps downloads today.
Latency is still an issue for many and VoIP relies heavily on consistent speeds and low latency; both of which can be hit or miss with wireless even today. There isn't much substitute for low latency fixed line that should be the case with fibre, along with the very significant speed improvements. Even if more data isn't needed, anything downloaded would be done so in "lightning" quick time with fibre. Going with Optus layer 3 will go against the benefits that Exetel has enjoyed with a better provisioned layer 2 service. I suggest this offering should be provided as a budget service with premium still being offered for those that need or want higher performance -- a little like standard ADSL vs Business ADSL. So, there's a thought, possibly offer "standard wireless" to residential (with access to premium if desired) and push "premium wireless" for business (with access to budget if desired). Then we have the best of both wireless worlds which can compliment fixed line (wire or fibre) services, such as DSL and/or fibre down the track. Comment (1)
Yeah, def. should be a low cost option and not a replacement. In addition to Andrew's reason's above, add the lack of fixed IP address and no tethering allowed on Optus Cap plans.
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