John Linton .....at least it is for people who pay no attention to the actual 'length' of the day in terms of sunrise and sunset times. In Australia, June 1st is deemed to be the start of winter in this country (just as December 1st is deemed to be the start of summer) but the actual rotation of the planet Earth on its access would dictate that it actually starts on June 21st - as is the case in every other country on the planet as far as I know.
Whatever the actual situation is with winter (and a very reliable barometer is my wife who mark's the start of winter as being when she returns the electric blanket to the bed arrangements) this 'winter' is likely to be a very cold one for more than a few companies in the communications business. I don't base this on any deep knowledge of how any other supplier operates other than the continued increase in background 'noise' derived from our suppliers and from the contacts being made by some of our 'fringe competitors'. Like the older and less physically robust birds that visit our gardens, winter is a time when only the younger and stronger birds make it through to the warmer months at the end of each year. So it seems, at least to me, that the Australian 'boom economy' is actually about to enter, or has already entered, the winter season.
I base this on the 'facts' that three of the retail outlets I have used on and off for the past ten or so years have closed their doors in the past few weeks and that two of the suppliers Exetel has used since our early days no longer answer their telephone. Another indication of much tougher times is our residential bad debts, although still miniscule, have doubled over the past few months from less than 0.1per cent of monthly revenue to 0.2 per cent. There are other indicators of tougher times in the ways that our suppliers act in terms of 'better' offers to us but more obviously in the much better offers they make to other wholesale customers. While nothing I have cited points to anything concrete the agglomeration of so many indicators does show that the tough times we have been going through, in terms of the various residential markets in which we operated for the past two or so years, are showing little or no sign of easing.
If there was any doubt about how widespread the 'pain' caused by Telstra Retail's "win back campaigns" actually is you just have to look at the wave of 'new' pricing' for residential communications services that is beginning to appear almost everywhere you look lately. Some of this is the long overdue 'correction' of over charging by some of the more pretentious providers but most of it isn't - it is a genuine reduction in 'real' pricing. So where did these suppliers get the ability to make reduced offers? Impossible to say but probably true to say it was not done without great pressure from some source or another.....the source/cause being falling sales/sales revenue that has to be addressed by internal efficiencies (resulting in lower sell prices).
How all this will work out remains to be seen - good for most communications services buyers - not so good for communications services sellers appears to be inevitable. I would hazard a guess that the people who will be most affected will be the employees of the larger, and maybe the not so large, communications companies who will need to find alternate career paths as their current suppliers try and find the efficiencies required to 'repair' damaged income streams and profit margins. This certainly seems to be borne out by the number of unsolicited resumes I am receiving lately.
It appears it is going to be a tough winter for more than Currawongs this year.
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46