John Linton
We will finish the changes to the ADSL plans over the weekend and the results so far have been very positive with new and churn applications up on average around a little over 12%. There is little doubt that the free hundred VoIP calls has made an impact just as the $15.00 telephone line rental did and the combination of the two is, we hope, going to increase the acceleration of new and churn orders as the offering becomes more widely known.I think this is the 'last shot in the locker' in terms of improving our ADSL offerings for some time as there is really virtually nothing left to cut the costs of delivering the services.
The last remaining task is to see what can be done about improving our sales of mobiles either as stand alone or as part of a 'bundle'. We have done some preliminary work on revising the 'bundled' offerings but, as throughout previous years when we have attempted to put together some sensible permutations, the costs of the basic service components at our small size simply don't allow us to offer anything particularly attractive or even 'competitive'. I have never been very good at developing sensible mobile combinations as I have never really believed in the concepts - which makes the task just about impossible.
Our issues are that the concept of hundreds of minutes for a few dollars is simply beyond our abilities as we are conservative (sensible?) enough not to make extravagant promises to our suppliers to get better deals. My other issue is that I've been using VoIP on my mobile for approaching 6 months now and I really can't see how any mobile based rates can really approach HSPA mobile phone/VoIP cost effectiveness at 10 cents per un-timed call to wire line destinations and something like 10 cents a minute for calls to mobiles.
So - it will come down to gambling with a very few variables and I have very great reservations about gambling and that reticence is greatly increased in the uncertain times we now find ourselves in and the ongoing situations that may come about. We need to put together an offer of 100 mobile calls for $A15.00 or thereabouts (inc GST) on a bundled ADSL offering but it is proving beyond any wild stretch of my 'bravery' to find a way of constructing any realistic method of doing that. 15 cent untimed mobile calls, at our buy levels just aren't possible but, from everything I've looked at, that is about where a mobile offer needs to be.
Having now effectively 'bundled' VoIP with every Exetel broadband service offering at no additional charge has made a mobile 'bundle' even more difficult. The best suggestion we have currently come u with is to include a sim (at no charge to the customer) with every ADSL service with a special set of low cost rates if the customer chooses to activate it. That at least has the advantage of simplicity and also makes 'distribution' of the sim relatively straight forward......but it's not really 'compelling'.
The alternative was to include a number of pre-paid calls with the sim so that parents could give it to their children (who more often only have pre-paid plans of some type) as a 'bonus' and hopefully those plans get re-charged once the initial credit runs out. Again not exactly a brilliant conception nor very 'compelling'.The other issue with these initiatives is to find a way of getting the on line billing meters at a real time basis which has proven to be impossible in the past nad only a vague possibility at the moment. Obviously without this facility it isn't possible to offer pre-paid services or to be in any way creative with a fixed number of calls up to a threshold.
Perhaps I'm running out of lateral thinking after so many years of trying to make communications offerings attractive in residential markets where we have no real ability to compete. I am, more often these days, inclined to believe that is the case and then it actually surprises me sometimes that Exetel has got as far as it has in the various market places that produce our small, but continually growing, revenues and I get re-encouraged to believe that small companies do serve some sort of purposes in residential markets dominated by the large carriers.
The situation is far easier with business services as there are higher volumes and a greater willingness, and ability, to recognise true commercial realities that see 'free' handsets and huge 'caps' for what they are and it's much easier to design truly cost effective commercial plans for businesses. This applies across the range of communications services not just for mobiles and fortunately the large carriers and medium sized communications providers have such expensive 'sales and marketing' structures they have to charge very high prices which allows small companies like Exetel to compete much more easily.
It looks like being a tough and fruitless weekend.