John Linton
I noticed that InterNode announced yesterday that they had started offering "naked" ADSL2 services using the Optus ADSL2 network as it gave them a 350 exchange coverage compared to their own 100 exchange coverage. The plan pricing they are offering is, to say the least, "very unexciting" and their published pricing rationale is just plain bizarre. I suppose the pricing only makes sense in the context of their other statement in the announcement that they will "shortly begin offering "naked" ADSL2 on their own 100 exchanges - in other words they will offer substantially lower pricing on the same plans when connected to their own exchanges was what I inferred from that comment.
Exetel has been offering the Optus ADSL2 services since June 2006 and the "naked" version of the same Optus ADSL2 service since early December 2007. We were the first company to offer both those Optus services and, in terms of the ADSL2 with telephone line service, we were the only wholesale Optus customer for many, many months. I'm sure the "months of testing" Internode allude to in their announcement have been meticulously carried out and all aspects meticulously documented before they made the decision to 'proceed'- which piques my curiosity. I wondered what different view Internode must have formed over those "months" than Exetel has experienced over, presumably, the same months.
On consideration I think it's more likely to be an indication of Internode's experiences with their own provisioning and fault resolution of their own ADSL2 services.
I make that semi-cryptic comment because I feel like Michael J Fox in the first of the three 'Future' movies which I really enjoyed so many years ago. I say that because I've spent some time re-working Exetel's business plan for the balance of calendar 2008 and it feels like I've stepped back in time. Three years ago, the future, at least as I saw it for Exetel, was based on a rapid move to ADSL2 and a progressive 'escape' from the clutches of the ever more difficult to deal with Telstra.....and that has been the basic premise of Exetel's business plans for the past 30 months ever since the arrival of the new Telstra management team.
When I was looking at the various 'versions of the future' for Exetel over the next twelve months I am now seeing almost the reverse of that with a significant increase in ADSL1 growth and a much reduced amount of growth in ADSL2. Partly this is due to the decision to stop selling the AAPT/iiNet based ADSL2 service due to provisioning and fault resolution problems (the actual service itself has always been very good - until a line problem has to be addressed). However the major reason is the probability that ADSL2 as it now stands for the rest of calendar 2008 will become unprofitable as a service for Exetel to provide to new customers and therefore future estimates of new ADSL2 connections have had to be pretty drastically scaled back as far as Exetel is concerned.
To attempt to compensate for that possible new revenue reduction we have had to re-look at how we could increase our ADSL1 revenue and customer bases. I haven't done that for a very long while and the reasons were self evident - Telstra's systematic targeting of other ISP's ADSL1 customers with the consequent rapid slowing of overall ADSL1 growth - at least for Exetel.
So, indeed back to the future - with an Exetel business plan showing month by month changes but not away from Telstra but, unfortunately, a continued increase of growth in planned payments to Telstra.
I never thought I would be a part of making such plans and I'm still bewildered by what I've looked at doing over the past few weeks.
So the most 'innovative' (in a completely retro way) work that we are doing at the moment is developing new ADSL1 plans based on 1500/256 services at very low monthly costs that also include (to achieve the low costs) mobile and VoIP services at equally low costs.
The last time I did this was in November 2005!!
I'm not sure whether this means I've completely lost the plot or that i see things more clearly than anyone else......though as a rational being I have to think that I'm lucid enough to perceive my own lack of lucidity....but then such tortuous thinking gives me a headache.
Maybe I have finally lost it but it has occurred to me that there may well be a time in the not too distant future when, assuming Exetel remains in the ADSL business, we will buy all ADSL services from Telstra again so I'm keeping an eye out for clock towers where the clock doesn't work.