John Linton
...with very low per call charges?...has to be the best telephone line deal in Australia?
I have been trying to find 'the way' to encourage Exetel's ADSL1 users who are connected to the 400 or so exchanges that Optus have installed ADSL2 DSLAMs in to move to the faster ADSL2 speeds for almost two years now but particularly so over the past three months - and completely failed to come up with something that will break through this resistance. In fact there is now a 'hard core' of around 15,000 ADSL1 users on ADSL2 enabled exchanges that give every indication of not ever moving away from ADSL1 - at least with Exetel.
So my latest attempt will be to offer Australia's lowest cost PSTN line rental of $15.00 a month which, as far as I can see, is lower than the infamous Telstra Home Line Budget (with its horrendously high call charges) at $A20.95 and even cheaper than Telstra's "Pensioner" discounted telephone line rental at $A17.95. $A15.00 is, of course, far lower than the sort of charges made by other ISPs/telephone service providers for their "bundled" telephone plans which seem to vary from $A25.00 to over $A32.00).
As well as this ultra low cost line which already comes with very low cost call charges, again much lower than Telstra's or other ISPs, I was getting desperate enough to throw in unlimited local calls or something like that in this 'last throw of the dice'.
I have been deeply puzzled by why a broad band user wouldn't move from a 256/64 line speed to ADSL2 speeds at no down time or transfer cost at the same price as they were paying for the slower service....but after two plus years of trying I can't make it happen.
Exetel's ADSL2 prices are already as low as we can make them and stay in business so we can't 'improve' that aspect of the pricing. So, hence, my latest and almost certainly last way of looking at this issue is to offer the lowest cost telephone line rental (for many current ADSL1 users this would represent a 50% reduction in line rental cost) and not 'smoke and mirrors' that low line rental by jacking up the per call charges/per minute charges through the roof.
So - new year - new offer:
1) Current ADSL1 plan monthly price/current downloads - no service change charge/no downtime.
2) Must have telephone rental and call charges with Exetel.
3) Telephone line monthly rental will be $15.00 per month
4) Call charges will be current Exetel low call charges (lowest on the market).
5) Speed will be ADSL2 but will depend on user's modem capabilities - most modems bought within the last three years are ADSL2 capable.
6) User must submit their application using the 'special offer' form in the User Facilities before 11th March 2009.
7) No new contract term will apply.
I think if we made this offer to new ADSL2 users we would quadruple our ADSL2 sales but, maybe because of all my previous failures, I am not confident that this offer will be enough to move the majority of people to whom it's applicable - hence the thinking that maybe we need to make the free local call add on.
Maybe I've just lost it when it comes to understanding today's Australian communications buyer (as I said yesterday I've never understood the Australian mobile buyer).
So we'll send this offer to the customers to whom it applies over the weekend and see if it works better than the previous approaches - if it doesn't - we'll just have to give up and move on to PLAN Z.