John Linton
......end of PSTN line/call charge and ADSL1 rip offs in sight?
Exetel is a very small company but its business patterns are the only ones I have a detailed knowledge about so I can only gauge the 'nuances' of the DSL marketplaces from our own data. One, very obvious, continuing trend is the continued growth in 'market share' of ADSL2 without an active telephone line. I commented on this growth some time ago and since then it has continued in an ever more marked way.
Since the beginning of 2009 there hasn't been a day when "Naked ADSL2" applications haven't been greater than ADSL2 that needs an active telephone line with many days now showing more than twice the number of "Naked" ADSL2 orders than ADSL2 with a telephone line service. Over the past few days there have been several where "Naked ADSL2" has also come close to or exceeded the number of applications for ADSL1. It's also evident from the enquiries being received by Exetel that the interest in "naked" services are far outstripping those for services with PSTN calling capabilities.
If these trends are so clear with Exetel then I would think they are the same/similar for all other ISPs that offer a choice of ADSL2 services - and should be equally obvious to those that don't. Of course these volumes aren't yet significant in the overall broad band market places because the dominant ADSL provider and its wholesaler ISP customers (Telstra) eschew offering "naked" broadband services because of their need to maintain as many active PSTN lines (and their rip off call charges) as possible. It's also clear from the prices that ISPs other than Telstra charge for telephone calls and line rentals that they would be reluctant to see that revenue and profit disappear from their annual 'company size'.
In one way Teltra et alia's decision to insist that their customers continue to live in the past regarding the provision of ADSL is a good thing because it obviously locks them out of what seems to be by far the fastest growing 'section' of the wire line based broadband markets. Not good for their customers but then I doubt whether there has ever been a day in Telstra's history where what was good for their customers ever intruded in to any decision making process - similarly with the other ISPs who haven't provided the quite obviously best version (for the customer) of wire line based broadband.
I could be quite wrong of course and it may well be the case that ALL Telstra's decisions (and those of the other ISPs who have not provided a "naked" ADSL2 service) are ONLY based on what's in the best interests of their customers - perhaps I just don't look at enough facts before reaching the conclusions I stated above.
From what I can see the trend towards 'wire line less' broadband services ("naked" ADSL2 and HSPA) will continue the current trends and Exetel's current small figures show net adds of "Naked" ADSL2 and HSPA exceeding the net adds of ADSL2 that requires an active telephone line plus ADSL1 with that 'surplus' increasing each day and showing no sign of decline. It's a pleasant result for us because when we stopped offering 256/62 ADSL1 services our daily application intake dropped about 13% for around two months before the HSPA applications 'filled the gap' and have now exceeded the previous contribution of that slowest speed ADSL service.
I realise all the "smart" marketing people within the venal ISPs will point out that the basic residential telephone line user is both stupid and conservative and that those ISPs can rely on their customer's fear and inertia to keep them from changing to the newer cost saving technologies. It's what avaricious company's marketing/finance people always do - attempt to slow the progress of the human race for their own dull and petty understandings of their own self interest. However to misquote someone I don't remember:
"There is nothing so unstoppable as an idea whose time has come"
I've heard that phrase used about VoIP since Steve and I installed some of the first PAPL lines with voice compression boxes at either end in the mid 1990s and of course every year since then. Clearly, for many years that view was totally wrong - but not any more - VoIP (and VoIP over HSPA) is probably the ONLY way to make voice calls today because they cost a fraction of what Telstra et alia want to charge for a non-VoIP call (and the wire line to carry the call). 10 cents per STD untimed call with no telephone line rental has to be increasingly compelling to even the most conservative of users.
NO business that uses anything but VoIP is doing anything but wasting huge amounts of money in a totally reprehensible way.
NO residential user that doesn't make the minor investment in a VoIP TA/router/whatever is doing anything but costing themselves money that they should be spending on the basic essential and/or the joys of life - not giving it to a rip off telephone company.
Much sooner than is the situation right now (according to the trends in Exetel's applications for broadband services) the upward trend in "voice telephone line less" broad band will become exponential and one of the Telstra "benefit of the shareholder's" curses on all Australians will melt away like unseasonal snow on a hot day.
.....but then again, that was being said in 1995.....