John Linton
....and the 'variable' education standards over the past 50 or so years and the semi illiteracy it has produced among a much wider group of people than you would think possible makes a choice of words very difficult at times.....even more of a 'problem' when, as I am doing now and every morning for the past two plus years, writing without paying any attention to moderating my word selection and clumsy syntax....clearly illustrated by the length and construction of this heading....so this musing is for those, kind, people who want me to describe Exetel in more 'grandiose' terms.
I am constantly reminded of this issue by people who write to me having read one or other of these ramblings taking me to task for constantly referring to Exetel as a "tiny" or "very small" company. I do that because it is the correct description of Exetel in the context of the Australian communications industry where the largest company turns over more than $A25 billion in the last financial year compared to Exetel's less than $A50 million. In terms of magnitude how do you 'rate' the size of a company that is one five hundredth of the size of another?.....the word "tiny" comes to mind. Alternatively you could 'rate' the two companies on employees where Telstra has over 50,000 employees and Exetel has around 70 - making Exetel one seven hundredth the size of Telstra....in terms of rating the word "tiny" again comes to mind.
They are facts - and facts should not be played around with as liars and dishonest people try and do to try and make something appear to be to different to what it actually is - a terrible condition of so many Australians (and I'm sure people in other countries) who seem unable to accept circumstances as they are and, for their own self aggrandisement, try and portray themselves and their organisations as being more important than they are or, in many cases in this twisted period of Australia's history, as being completely different to what they actually are. For that reason, from the first month of Exetel's existence and then every month since then, we have published a 'history' of Exetel which has 'tracked' the company's progress. As far as I know no other company has had the 'courage' to publish such a record. It can be found here:
http://www.exetel.com.au/news_main.php
I could, if I tried and had no respect for the intellectual or ethical capacities of anyone who read my words, describe Exetel differently to "tiny" but that would be stupid and make me look as stupid and dishonest as people who do that - something I have no need to do at this 'contented' stage of my life. If you don't believe how absurdly easy that is I could describe Exetel as being:
1) The fastest growing data communications company in Australia - an average of well over 30% per annum over the past three years
2) The Australian data communications company with the least debt - zero
3) The most efficient Australian data communications in any business ratio comparison - Revenue/employee, Customers/employee, etc
......but what would be the point?....I'm an adult and business relationships are, mostly, between adults.
On a less grandiose note I could use simple facts to 'inflate' the importance of Exetel in such ways as:
A) October 2009 will be the 69th consecutive record revenue month for Exetel stretching back to the establishment of the company and that growth has been entirely 'organic' i.e. we haven't bought other businesses to produce the results we have attained.
B) Over the past few days we added new IP bandwidth that, in total around Australia, means that Exetel now provides over 5 gbps of IP bandwidth to its Australian customers.
C) Exetel owns all the real estate from which it operates in Australia and will shortly pay cash to double its floor space (we plan to hire around 50 additional people over the next year) by buying new premises in the Sydney CBD to cater for its planned Australian revenue/personnel growth in 2010.
All of the six points above are true - at least to the best of my knowledge they are - and I could, with very little thought come up with several more. None of them change the FACT that Exetel IS a tiny data communications company and even if we succeed in our plans to double the size of the company over the next 14 months - nothing will have changed - we will still be tiny in comparison to Telstra.....and there is absolutely nothing wrong in using that, factually correct, word to describe a start up company after six years of its existence.....
.....and that simple 'fact' of 'history' opens up a whole new range of "we are better than them" claims...."after six years of operation Exetel is larger in terms of revenue/customers/PoPs/bandwidth/profit than ANY of the ISPs (not carriers) that are currently bigger than us today.
So for all the kind people - there you go - ours is bigger than theirs!
PS: you know, those descriptions sound so impressive I might do a bit of work on them and make those claims on the Exetel web site so if you see any errors/anomalies/outright untruths in the above - please let me know.