John Linton
As part of the 'release process' of Exetel offering data over Optus mobile network we, and 20 or so customers who volunteered to test the service, have used various versions of VoIP from various VoIP providers using a range of mobile hand sets. The testing, and it is at this stage just testing, shows no problems in using VoIP instead of the 'standard' mobile services from Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and '3'. We will continue to push the testing over a much wider area and using many more different handsets over the next few weeks now that we have begun shipping sims and modems in greater numbers to 'real' customers and I'm hopeful the results will be equally positive.
I, due to other commitments yesterday, haven't bought my 3G handset yet but I will try to do that either later today or tomorrow. As a two year plus VoIP over wire line user I have never had any problems using VoIP to run Exetel's business and, based on the testing done over the past three months, it would appear that VoIP over 3G will provide a similar experience. I'm looking forward to trying out the VoIP over HSPA service in different areas of Australia over the coming weeks.
I think this will be appealing to personal users (who have already bought a 3G capable handset or who will be buying one in the near future) - unless of course they are going to attempt to get "cheap/free" handsets as part of a mobile "plan". People who do that aren't interested in reducing their living costs, by definition, so reducing the cost of mobile calls to the minimum is not an important aspect of their personal economic decision making. As sch buyers account for a very, very large percentage of the Australian market it's not going to overly concern the carriers that a tiny company like Exetel is aiming to do something that they can't, commercially, do themselves.
I never thought it would be a generally appealing opportunity for the wider mobile user market but that it would appeal to the more thoughtful mobile user who understood how their money was spent in using a mobile telephone service and as that was probably in excess of 5% of the total (around 750,000 users) that was a very big market for a company that was able to offer the service as there would not be many providers who would be able to combine HSPA/VoIP/Data services in an economical 'bundle'. In fact all of the carriers and most of their 'tied' resellers would be desparate NOT to promote such a concept I would think.
I think the major market for VoIP over 3G are the 250,000 small businesses who pay for their own and their employee's 'business' use of their mobile telephones. I have no way of realistically knowing what the size of this marketplace is but my estimate is that it's well over a million users. Together with the 'informed' pay your own bills personal user this is a potential marketplace of perhaps 2 million end users but it's a very unusual potential marketplace in that almost every 'provider' wont actively try to provide such services to this marketplace but almost all providers will do everything they can to NOT provide such services.
If that assumption is correct then Exetel has a pretty unique opportunity to provide services based on brand new technology that saves the end user a great deal of money with not only NO competition but with the competition actually promoting the concept by vigorously and very publicly 'advertising against it - thereby promoting it.
I don't think that there is a single business that is run by owner/operators who wont look at the opportunity of cutting their mobile bills by 75% very seriously. I know the mobile pone decision makers in 11 large companies using around 7,000 handsets (publicly listed companies with decisions on mobile phones and services made by middle/lower level management) who don't make such decisions based on their personal whim on what new 'free' handset they can get for themselves as a 'bribe' to accepting a provider's proposal but do make decisions on what's best for the company. So my estimate of around 2 million end users may well be larger than that.
Untimed mobile calls to any wire line in Australia plus mobile calls at 15 cents a minute with no 'flag fall' is a very appealing financial proposition. Add free calls between employees and the compulsion begins to become extremely difficult to resist.
All I have to do now is to find a way of contacting those potential decision makers - oh wait - Exetel has always known how to do that.
PS: I had a great day out with my two eldest daughters yesterday and could see early in the second quarter that Geeong were not going to win so had plenty of time to reconcile myself to that fact and act and speak in a sensible and responsible way. I think I surprised them, Annette when I eventualy got home late last nght and myself at this unusual display of quasi-maturity!