John Linton Exetel has a few very good ViSP clients and has been slowly developing the on line resources that provide the same services to a VISP as Exetel itself has in diagnosing and solving an end user's problems. We have taken this development very slowly as we are quite aware of the strange situations that have arisen over the past five years by other companies providing such services to very small companies or to larger companies who don't see the provision of ISP services as being their major source of revenue and profit.
The examples of the almost insane way that Veridas operated a VISP business and the, in some ways, even more careless way WTG operated a similar business are stark reminders that supporting small companies, or companies that aren't dedicated to the very difficult processes of selling and then delivering ADSL and other communications services can end, very easily, in financial disaster.
Telstra tried and ultimately failed to make such a business work and I get the feeling that several other larger ISPs and carriers have made attempts that have not worked out. So, obviously, this sort of thing will be a total breeze to such a large and experienced company such as Exetel!
I think we can grow our VISP business as part of the program to more quickly build our customer numbers in the States and Territories we need to activate new PoPs in. Our experience to date for a variety of reasons, is largely positive and although we've had to assist one of our VISP customers overcome some, relatively brief, financial/cash flow issues we have been encouraged rather than discouraged by the progress we've made to date.
It's pretty obvious that, in all States and Territories, we will have to make more efforts outside the 900 ADSL2 enabled exchanges under the dead hand of Telstra which means concentrating our efforts in regional areas of Australia for the most part and I, personally, am very happy to do that having a great love of the smaller country communities that comprise most of what is the very best of Australia - views I formed when I first came to this country and consolidated over the first ten or so years of my working and social life here.
We currently have over 100, productive, Exetel Agents outside the main capital cities and a further 50 productive agents on the 'fringes' of the main capital cities. These agents contribute a significant percentage of new ADSL1 customers each month and our view is they may be able/willing to more than double that contribution should we be able to present an attractive financial and business solution to them - we would also hope to be able to attract current VISPs to move away from their current provider over the next 12 to 18 months.
As we ramp up the support hours and days during which we provide end user support we woud also be able to offer VISPs a support service that would be financially atttractive to them and, perhaps, solve one of their current major problems. We believe that, in conjunction with the constantly evolving on line diagnosis and reporting tools that are aready in place it's more than possible to offer a level of financial benefits together with support benefits that have never been offered before to VISPs.
We would need to ensure that we didn't make the same, similar or different mistakes to those that caused the demise of Veridas and WTG and whatever caused Telstra to end its VISP program whic, from what I can see were:
Poor credit risk assessmet
Poor credit control
Heavy handed/bullying 'too late' credit control
Inadequate on line processes
Inadequate billing systems
Inadequate support systems
Greed in believing in 'pie in the sky' forecasts
Stupidity in believing that their VISP's problems weren't their problems
Some four years ago, in the first few months of Exetel's existence I made the point to the key people who had started up the company that in the future, assuming that it survived and became successful, I woud expect Exetel to grow by 'franchising' in regional Australia rather than by Exetel just becoming bigger of its own efforts. That has never been possible to date, largely because Exetel hasn't become successful enough to implement such a program so far......
......but, now, may be close to that time.