John Linton
.....or in this context, what can an ISP of the future give their customers?
When Steve and I were first associated with each other, and coincidentally in setting up one of the early ISP services at TPG as it then was (obviously on dial up), providing the customer with one email account was the limit of the service 'add ons' that could be offered. Email in those days (mid 1990s) was not widely used - how could it be? - internet generally was in its infancy - so this 'add on' probably had a limited value to the residential user of the time.
As we parted and re-joined ways over the succeeding ten years on various internet set up assignments for different companies (OneTel and Swiftel jointly and Paradox for Steve and Apple/iGreen for me separately) we gradually added to the 'add ons' but, when I thought about it at the time or think about it now, those add ons were not of particularly good value or even widely used by the various customers of those four different ISPs.
I watched other ISPs similarly struggle to provide 'added value' including "free streaming radio", free 'PIPE' peering data, free mirror services, free garbage TV stations and so on - all of which were characterised by being of extremely limited value to less than a fraction of any ISP's customer base.
ISPs have continued to struggle to 'add value' to a basic internet service since I was first involved in the ISP business and most of the 'added value' provided, across the board by every ISP in Australia, doesn't seem to add any customer value at all - only cost and in the "bundle your telephone line and call cost" scenarios they add massive costs to the customer, entrench Telstra's revenue and profit position in communications and ensure that progress in implementing new technologies is slowed to a crawl.
Exetel has, since February 2004, tried to really add value to the basic internet service but I doubt that we have, as yet, succeeded in doing that in the ways we had hoped to do. Our current line up of 'added value' services either free or at minimal cost is, probably, more comprehensive than all other Australian ISPs but with a base premise of providing base internet at the lowest cost of any provider in the Australian marketplace our abilities are very constrained. So:
We offer 20 email addresses rather than 1 or a few and we offer 500 megabytes of free web space rather than a few megabytes and a free blog service but Google and a plethora of others offer free emails and free web space and blog space that "have the advantage of not being ISP dependent".The cost to Exetel of offering these three services is around $A8,000 a month at the moment and I can think of plenty of uses for another $A100,000 a year rather than wasting it on providing services that can be obtained 'free' somewhere better.
So perhaps we should drop those three services and spend the money on something more valuable to our customers? Unfortunately every time this suggestion is made the arguments for not providing these services fall away very quickly under a storm of protest from the customers who use the services (almost 80,000 of these services are in regular use at the moment so the appeal of "ISP Independent" email addresses and web space isn't as 'universal' as some proponents make out.
No such arguments are advanced for our three most popular 'add on services':
100 free VoIP calls, 30 free SMS and 20 free FAXs each month and the rapid take up of those services, the majority of all Exetel broadband users use at least two of them each month and the use of FAX has now rapidly increased since we made the first 20 ten page faxes free.
Our most popular add on, the currently 54 gb of uncharged downloads that can be used 12 hours a day, is unquestionably the greatest add on value offered by any ISP in Australia. Although one or two ISPs, clearly bereft of any ability to think up their own ideas have begun to try and offer a similar "add on" they are not currently succeeding with too many constraints and too little thought and control implementation to make it as valuable as Exetel's add on benefit.
So, on balance, we have provided 4 'unique' value adds to a base Exetel broad band service that is the lowest price avaialble but these have not been enough to grow the overall ADSL business very rapidly so they are clearly not what the 'majority' of internet users deem to be particularly important let alone essential.
I have given this a lot of thought over the past year as I tried to come up with a residential user broad band strategy for the second five years of Exetel's existence (should it continue to survive of course). I'm now, more than ever, happy that Exetel decided against our own ADSL2 DSLAMs in favour of a Layer 2 HSPS strategic future and give ourselves a 'tick' for logically looking in to the future and not seeing a place for a small company's own "infrastructure roll out" (sorry Peter). My problem is that at current costings Exetel can't continue that logical thinking and drop wire based broad band completely in favour of an HSPA based 'total communications solution' which is what is required.
So what Exetel has to put in place as being what 90% of Australian users want from their ISP is this ten point plan/strategy/implementation/call it what you like:
1) An all in one 'communications centre' that is essentially a wireless router/HSPA modem with ATA capability for customer buy of $240.00.
2) An HSPA service with multiple sims per user that share a single account allowing the 'home' to use wireless/Ethernet to connect to multiple PCs/Laptops with the additional sims being used in mobile phones and or lap tops while traveling.
3) A low cost Yagi (or equivalent/replacement) aerial for rural/regional users that will extend distance from the nearest tower required for a good signal to 30+ kilometers.
4) Voice, SMS and FAX over IP for both all desktops/Laptops and mobile handsets to reduce all mobile telephone call costs to a minimum.
5) An HSPA service with a consistent speed of in excess of 10 mbps and a latency that allows playing the most popular games.
6) Data charges that are equivalent to current ADSL2 data charges (plus the cost of the lowest priced telephone line and ADSL2 service charge rental)
7) No service or part of any service to be dependent on Telstra's horrendous pricing models)
8.) A network of 1,000 agents across Australia who will provide the installation and early support for these installations where an end user requires it.
9) The ability, if required, to migrate a PSTN number to become a VoIP number without the current hassles and delays
10) A 'migration' strategy that will satisfy even the most cautious and conservative buyer that they can make such a move with no down side.
If you've followed Exetel's service developments over the past two plus years you would see that we have been pursuing this 'holy grail' of residential communications for some time and put many of the base 'building blocks' in place.
We are closer than we were three years ago.