John Linton
......and no clear bases on which to make them.
Last week seemed to me to be a much tougher than average week in terms of really difficult decisions that needed to be made and looking at what is coming up this week it seems to me that the decisions that need to be made are less clear cut and more difficult than last week. While I realise that the responsibility for making decisions in commercial life is very clearly that of the people who seek, or end up in, 'positions of authority' within commercial enterprises it doesn't change the fact that more and more decisions that need to be made, even in a company of Exetel's size have become more difficult under the current Labor government which has intruded so deeply in to the communications industry.
One of the decisions that we foresaw from the moment the 'NBN1' was announced, and then when it was demonstrated to be the total sham it actually was, the 'NBN2' replaced it, was a period where the real future direction of providing residential data services would become very unclear. It was also obvious that government interference would reach its most damaging stage at around the same time that the ADSL broadband market would become saturated producing the 'double whammy' effect beloved of a certain level of financial forecasters. That time is around about now. There is little doubt that the ADSL broadband market has become saturated and there is only a little doubt that the Labor government's intrusion into the communications industry has reached its 'turning point'....has it done enough to get re-elected and continue with the venture or will it be seen by an electorate, together with many other things, as one more uncosted blue sky promise that will bankrupt the country and destroy its future?
Either scenario is irrelevant because the degree of uncertainty is all that matters and that very clearly is what is causing many of the current 'events' now being seen.
All that does matter is what to do about providing residential data services between now and the next Federal election and then, after that election, if in fact Labor is re-elected, quickly working out what will be the likely time frame of a deliverable 'NBN' infrastructure and how much of Australia it will cover within the various time frames. In the mean time today is very difficult to deal with for residential data services using non wireless solutions and we need to make some really hard decisions on how we deal with the coming 3 - 6 months. As with last week's decisions, I haven't got any bases for making them as even the immediate future is unclear to me which makes it very difficult to make up your mind on what you should do in terms of the current ADSL residential services and especially what should be done with wireless services in the next few weeks.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/customer-decline-hurts-telstra-20100418-sml3.html
One of the unknowns is illustrated in the above article. What is Telstra going to do with its residential ADSL and other service offerings to arrest its declining market share and what, if anything are they going to do with their wholesale pricing as they decide on agreeing to split off their wholesale operations?
We have two major contracts to sign or not sign based on how we see the month by month situation 'panning out' and a third contract that could become very important depending on the result of the next Federal election. I haven't got any idea as I type this what I will recommend to these decision making processes as to how we continue offering ADSL2, how we continue offering wireless broadband and whether we begin the process of finding a fibre residential service with enough coverage and suitable pricing to make it viable - for Exetel to offer. Business services are unaffected by the current government intrusion and the saturation of the ADSL marketplaces because business services do not use ADSL and will not use an asymmetric fibre service in their core applications.
Basically all these decisions revolve around what services Exetel could offer to residential users in late 2010/2011, if any, and what infrastructure(s) should they be offered on. ADSL is not looking like it will be a service that Exetel will be offering in mid 2011 but there are so many unknowns between now and then that I can't say that with any degree of conviction. I wonder whether any other data communications companies are as unclear as I am on what will happen in the residential market places?
What will the ABS report published in late August 2011 show in terms of ADSL, wireless, 'NBN2' and Telstra/Optus Fibre user break down? I wonder if any ISP/RSP has got those numbers even close to being correct yet?
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,