John Linton ........and I very much doubt Internode selling out to iinet was for the 'public' reasons stated....it was simply money.....as always; that and the slight fear for the future of residential services and the sheer burden of running an ISP these days....after 18 years of easy times with the last three being an increasing pressure.
Exetel had another truly excellent sales day yesterday with a flood of business data orders and residential orders for most services showing no sign that it's practically Christmas. So more Exetel people say goodbye to take their Christmas break and the office is progressively emptier. It really has been a remarkable December so far and, it may be 'crowned' today with our, by far, largest ever sale of business data services made by one of our "silly young girls" as one of the drones at Macquarie Telecom refer to Exetel's corporate sales force. They are predominantly young but both their degree transcripts and their performance in their jobs makes them anything but "silly". 113 more wins for the "silly young girls" so far in December - 113 more losses for the competition's 'sales forces'. Just who is "silly"?
I read about the Internode sell out to iinet yesterday afternoon although what little 'explanation' there was made no sense to me....but then I am not too bright when it comes to these sorts of things. I thought it went beyond naivete to suggest that "Internode would continue to operate as a separate entity" and that "no changes would be made at Internode" - if that were the case why pony up $105 million? To more than naievely suggest that "look at Westnet" - still operating independently after almost 4 years" is just a laughable lie - as any Westnet employee or customer would attest to. Not that it matters - no-one shells out money to pay for something they don't intend to change and there is no need to say such a thing. It was obvious, at least to me, that the steep increase in Internode customers churning to Exetel over the last two months or so as Internode raised its residential ADSL prices was eerily reminiscent of Westnet's similar exercise as they boosted the ARPU of their customer base prior to selling it as was the recent wholesale firing of high priced employees to boost the profit per month.
Does it actually mean anything?
I can't see anything changing in the 'industry'. The reality is that Internode was/is a high priced residential ADSL provider with perhaps 3% of the residential marketplace being bought by another high priced supplier with perhaps 10% of of the residential marketplace. What changes? Nothing at all. The mumblings about "protecting iinet from being taken over by TPG" are nonsensical - it can't possibly affect such a scenario if in fact it exists. Why TPG is buying up iinet shares suggests that TPG is interested in acquiring iinet but that scenario, if it is correct, has a long way to go and would be of no interest to anyone other than the iinet directors/senior management who would lose their toys and have to find new jobs.
The other nonsense talked about the "NBN making it imperative to be very large to compete in the future" is equally the sheerest nonsense. Apart from the fact that there is currently no NBN and its anyone's guess as to how many years it will take before there is any sort of NBN and what change(s) will take place when/if there is one? Will Telstra be anything other than a lesser threat if the NBN ever gets built? Of course not.... it will disappear as the threat it is today and is unlikely to ever be as 'threatful' as it has been in the past. Irrespective of what conjecture, passing for insight, suggests - if there ever is an NBN, Telstra will never dominate the Australian telecommunications market in the future as it has in the past....Foxtel might become the major provider to the residential marketplaces with better management....but not Telstra.
The relevance of Internode being bought out by iinet? Nothing at all to anyone other than to the personnel within the two companies who will be made redundant.
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