John Linton .....but I really appreciated that there were almost no cars on the roads we traveled over today - and after the England vs Germany game kicked off at 3 pm local time there were absolutely none.
We drove from North West Norfolk to Rutland Water today to visit two bird sanctuaries where, among other things, we were fortunate enough to see a very rare sight - three chicks and both adults of an Osprey family - one of only three currently reported in England.It was a thrilling sight and a great tribute to all the people and financial supporters who have made it possible. When we left the two sanctuaries we drove on roads that seemed almost eerily empty but made for a quick and painless trip to tonight's hotel deep in the middle shires of England which provide glorious vistas from almost every part of the road trip. It is, truly, a green and pleasant land - outside the cities.
I answered my emails and read through the Australian media while Annette watched the second half of the soccer and its aftermath (the referee was biased and blind and England were rubbish seemed to be the consensus) and consumed a very welcome double gin and tonic in a long glass (I haven't mentioned it but each of the six days we have been here has been very hot - up to 30 degrees today and at least one other day since we landed). I didn't find anything of any particular interest in any sector of the press I read but that might be due to my 'unwinding' from the pressures of working days to the simple pleasures of holidays. I did take the opportunity of having internet access in our room to look at our June results with a few days to go. Generally they are good and we have already made all of the key financial targets 9except profit) earlier in the month.
One of the really 'good' results of the changes we had to make to our ADSL plan emphasis is being shown in the IP and back haul graphs with the usage continuing to fall very slowly as the people who move away from Exetel are, on average, the very high down loaders (200 gb plus in off peak) while the new customers that (more) than replace them continue to be from a lower down loading demographic. The net result is the anticipated fall in actual IP and back haul usage while the net number of customers slightly increases. It was a difficult set of decisions to be made but it may turn out as we had hoped over the coming two months.
Another good indicator is the continuing growth in the number of SMS and Faxes being sent and the more rapid growth of VoIP on both ADSL and Wireless Broadband - all four of these services have hit record highs already in June with a few days still to go. All of these services represent important aspects of Exetel's FY2010 market developments and are even more important in the corporate offerings for the coming months. So no surprises as the final numbers for FY2010 become clearer which is good and the year will end up with pretty solid growth across all 'product' areas and enormous growth in corporate data services.
I will be interested to see what happens once the Federal Government 'turns on' the first test phase of the 'NBN2' in Tasmania next month - I will be sorry that I'm not in Australia to track what happens. It is going to be an interesting period for all residential data communications providers in how they handle the roll out of fibre services - depending on the speed and ubiquity of whatever transpires. It is going to be interesting in many ways not the least being how Telstra deals with its large fibre investments and how it 'tariff's' any resale of NBNCo services - I would dearly love to have advanced notice of how that will play out.
Oh well.....I feel a large single malt requesting my presence......
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