Monday, August 16. 2010VoIP - The New Revenue 'Saver'?John Linton We face a difficult week in different ways.....though all weeks seem difficult these days. I sometimes wonder whether business is actually getting continually more difficult in the Australian communications business or whether it just endlessly repeats the same cycle and induces a greater degree of boredom that just makes business life look more difficult. Because our company is so small in any comparative terms the major trends and demands do not really affect us but the 'knock on effects' of such changes sometimes do and often quite unpredictably. I'm glad we don't have Telstra's problems or even the problems that Telstra's problems will bring to Optus and other larger communications providers. (like the steep share drops experienced by TPG and iinet when Telstra announced it was going to buy back market share and the share market realised that the 'free ride' was over). However we do get affected eventually as is evident from Telecom NZ's sale of their residential telephone/internet business to iinet....in that case it removes a long term supplier to us which will be impossible to replace as it was a major 'component of our future business "strategy" (as well as being a key part of our residential offerings). I am glad Exetel doesn't have the problems of losing wire line rental and call revenue that so many of our 'competitors' are dependent upon to boost their annual revenue lines and, presumably, do something for their profit performance - because, with the exception of the Optus bundled wire line/ADSL2 services we don't have any. However, we do have the increasingly difficult and complex operationally task of building our business VoIP business - not only in terms of infrastructure and switching equipment but in terms of end user equipment which in turn requires warranties and maintenance capabilities. While none of those activities are particularly difficult of themselves they are not all that easy to put in place and they do need medium if not longer term planning processes so that we do not inconvenience any future customer. We already offer customer premises hardware and, being the cautious people we are, we restrict that to Cisco boxes which can be supplied with both on site Cisco maintenance and, if required, Cisco leasing finance. But times are changing. Small businesses which are now ever more enthusiastically embracing VoIP (increasingly for reasons far beyond some call cost savings) are needing hardware solutions that cost far less than the sort of Cisco hardware that medium sized businesses are used to paying. Also, because of the nature of the new types of solutions that VoIP can deliver they do need 'moving parts (hard drive) hardware' that, by definition, requires rapid response maintenance. Our VoIP group believes they have developed a very useful VoIP solution based on micro computing hardware and Asterisk software which will be very appealing to small customers and, at first look, I can see that solution's many appealing features. One the non-appealing features is providing hardware that requires both warranty and ongoing maintenance. Providing maintenance services brings with it not only the high start up costs but the high ongoing costs of having instant response 'stand by' repair/replace services. I have some experience of providing such services and from that experience I understand the costs and difficulties even a highly efficient operation brings with it. However, looking in to the future as far as next month clearly indicates that wholesaling ADSL services is not something that will ever bring any real return to Exetel which is quite OK because we never thought, or planned for, that to be the case. Over the years of running an ultra lean and incredibly cost/efficient service supply company we have perhaps been too dilatory in cutting our business over from what we clearly saw as a product in its sun set years to something that hadn't quite made it over the dawn yet. Inevitably that lack of haste has left less than a desirable amount of time to make the required changes....but now we have to accelerate them. So the week is full of 'meetings' and 'discussions' centred around what we do about the AAPT demise, the Telstra Retail 'buy back' initiatives and the business VoIP solutions both short and medium term....as well as dealing with the usual suspects. Once upon a time I would relish dealing with such very difficult challenges.....I'm not so sure about that now though I suspect it has something to do with the first days of the new EPL season and the lack of sleep that brings with it....it takes some weeks to adjust to the required radically altered sleep quantities. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
Sunday, August 15. 2010Sometimes I Get Things So Very Wrong.....John Linton ........I have serious doubts about the wisdom of my continuing presence at Exetel. I now have serious doubts that my view that there would never be a demand for expensive Telstra infrastucture ADSL services via Exetel may be yet another very wrong view I have held for too long. Admittedly, Saturday is a quiet day for residential ADSL applications being on average only 20% of an average week day. Also there would have been a certain amount of 'pent up demand' from current customers based on our forum discussions. However I was very surprised to see that new residential ADSL applications for the just released Telstra ADSL2 plans comprised 30% of new applications we received yesterday and a far higher 45% of current residential customers 'change my plan' entries in the Exetel user facilities. I am not getting ahead of myself with these tiny numbers but the percentages have, very much, surprised me. While I will wait and see what happens next week on 'normal' days it seems likely that the demand for expensive ADSL at faster speeds is greater than any optimistic number I would have thought of. So, in terms of ADSL2 in areas where only a Telstra infrastructure solution is available it will be interesting to see what happens between now and Christmas. It seems likely that Telstra Retail will follow up there recent price cuts/cash back offerings with deeper cuts at least once (their 'Christmas' special offer) and possibly one between now and then and the various changes that will now need to be made by other internet providers have yet to be seen. The tiny number of new and current customer applications we have received so far are all (but one) from areas where we cannot provide an Optus or AAPT ADSL2 service so it does, at this incredibly early stage and tiny numbers, validate the view that the TW ADSL2 services will only appeal to customers who can't get ADSL2 from another provider but it will be interesting to see if that view holds up over the next month or so. I still have not dismissed the view that the days of being a wholesale customer of a major carrier in any part of the residential communications marketplace is not only long past its 'salad days' but may be rapidly approaching its dotage. I have expressed my doubts that the 'heads of agreement' between Telstra and NBNCo is anything other than a delaying tactic by Telstra to obtain some breathing space while they see what they can do to repair the damage done by customer loss and other negative results of not 'moving with the times'. I also sense that while Telstra is becoming slightly less difficult to deal with the changes it is making are pressuring the retail activities of Optus and with AAPT effectively gone from the wholesale carrier space this has changed the views within Optus as to the 'value' of their wholesale activities. In fact the whole concept of 'wholesale' has been changing for a while and has less relevance (for the carriers), at least as it is formulated in Australia today, than at any other time I can remember. Our relationships with our three major carrier suppliers are all over six years 'old' now and in their different ways they formed the key services on which Exetel has grown -but they have all fundamentally changed over the past few months.Perhaps they have been preparing to deal with a new regime of price cut competition: http://www.smh.com.au/business/telecoms-tumble-on-fears-of-a-price-war-20100813-1231v.html The AAPT relationship has changed the most fundamentally simply because they have finally progressed their desired result of quitting the Australian market - can't get more fundamental than that. Telstra's changing attitudes have been evident for 6 months or so but are more evident today and in this 'twilight period' of considering the HOA with NBNCo are likely to stay that way for the next six months or so......but at the end of the day I can't see how/why Telstra would seriously pursue a wholesale business if they had any real choice. I would have thought that Optus had the most to gain from some sort of wholesale business but it has been apparent for some months that is changing due to the external pressures of Telstra and the putative 'NBN2' and some hard for me to read personnel changes. So it's all going to be very different in a year's time and whether that is good or bad for wholesale buyers of Exetel's size is difficult for me to tell and having got so many decisions wrong over the years I should have learned enough lessons to realise I shouldn't try any more - it makes for a much easier life. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
Saturday, August 14. 2010Hold The Front Pages......John Linton .......Telstra's CEO has announced that, after long and detailed research, he now believes that high pricing and poor customer service are the reason that customers are leaving Telstra in increasing numbers. You have to admit that, if you pay enough money for your CEO, you get real results. I left commenting on this statement because I didn't want to confuse what I wrote about yesterday. Despite my facetiousness it represents the single most significant statement by a Telstra senior manager in, well, in a very long time and it is the single most concerning statement made by a Telstra executive that I can recall in the time I have been involved in Australian communications. It has far more importance than El Sol's "all wholesale customers are parasites" because it will actually produce far swifter and far more sweeping changes to the industry than the poorly thought out attitude of a set of carpet baggers than that Tex/Mex horror story ever could. Since 'de-regulation' allowed Optus to obtain a carrier license the 'alternative to Telstra' communication services have been gradually built up by companies that relied on Telstra's high prices to exist in the first place and then build their own inefficient companies (rivalling Telstra for inefficiency of operation as they grew) simply because there was so much fat left in the pricing that could be charged even after discounting Telstra's massive charges. This has allowed some semblance of an 'alternate' set of services to be offered by a rag tag and bobtail bunch of "other communications comanies" over the past decade plus with one company, Optus, even investing in both mobile and wire line infrastructures to become big enough to be a real company and perhaps the only one that can survive the new "Telstra initiatives". What am I talking about? Well, if you think about it for more than a trillionth of a second, which communications provider would you prefer to buy from if you had a choice between Telstra and anyone else? At the moment some thing like 35% of the total buyers of all types of services prefer to buy from some company other than Telstra - an increase from zero some 20 years ago - and you have to think in terms of those sorts of time frames because communications, unlike government tenures, is a multi decade business - not a day by day popularity contest. Telstr/Telecom/Department of the PMG/etc has been around for a century and has consistently evolved over that time - for a reason....it takes big continued investments over very long periods of time to build a communications infrastructure and it takes even more money than that required to build and constantly rebuild the infrastructure to deliver high reliability services to end users from a residential dwelling to a mega-corporation. It's an oxymoron but their actually are not any "medium sized" National telco's even in "medium sized" countries. Australia only has a bunch of medium sized communication providers because it has taken 20 or so years for Telstra to lose 35% of its previous 100% market share and it allowed that market share to be lost because it suited its financial plans in each of those years. Now it apparently sees a need to make some changes to it's "moving forward" strategies and it has decided to change the only two things that have allowed other start up communications companies to survive and then grow...it will attempt to reduce its prices and improve its service - the only two things that allow other companies to compete at all and, in reality, without a price advantage having 'better service' may be severely over rated.....if in fact Telstra's service is that bad, which I personally doubt. However that's another saucepan of piscines. So....in David Thodey's just discovered brand new communications world what will happen. It's a beautiful sunny Sydney Saturday morning and all is right with the world so let's take some guesses: 1) Telstra has got the current government off its back by signing a heads of agreement that gives it a year to put in place a whole lot of things that will allow it to say "sorry - no can do - it's the shareholders you know" mid 2011. 2) In the mean time it will fatally damage the aspirations of the "medium sized" communications companies by removing their only raison d'etre - price advantage and it will do some cosmetic changes to its already better than most companies support services (eliminating the complaints by the welfare dependent lunatics who bleat if they go over their download allowances or make a million mobile calls without being "alerted" by their provider. 3) They will also ready their fibre services and price them at 'new Telstra' pricing to demonstrate to the few remaining rationale sections of Australia that a fibre service already exists that requires no tax payer funded rorts for Labor mates. They will continue to build out a usable wireless service in areas that cannot get ADSL2. 4) If Labor is re-elected next Saturday, they will use the High Court to defend what ever position a re-elected Labor government attacks them on until a new election finally removes the current bunch of doctrinaire no hopers from doing further damage to Australia's communications infrastructures. Any bets? Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Friday, August 13. 2010Reporting Season Is Always Interesting....John Linton ....it is the only moment in the year when some form of truth (as long as you only look at the figures) replaces the rest of the year's flood of mis-information. The ASX reports by Optus and Telstra yesterday made interesting reading - Telstra reporting a fall of almost 5% in annual profit and Optus reporting an increase of 22%. Telstra ascribing much of its fall to a loss of some 325,000 wire line customers: and Optus ascribing its very, very strong growth to significant increase in mobile customers and very strong growth in mobile broadband. Vodafone had previously reported very strong growth and attributed 40% of its mobile revenues to data services. While I realise that taking a simplified set of numbers at one point in time isn't all that indicative of what might happen in the future it IS some real facts among a huge amount of wild and uninformed speculation about the viability or otherwise of the 'NBN2' and the obvious ignoring of directions of communications technology use in Australia. Take the unequivocal and simple statement by Telstra that over the past year some 325,000 residential premises turned off the wire line telephone and, presumably, substituted that telephone usage for mobile. (bringing the percentage of such residences to around 12% and growing at an inceasing rate). Apart from the damage those actions did to Telstra's profit in the last financial year what does it mean? One of the things it could mean is that people who rent on a short term basis no longer see the expense of activating a telephone as being cost effective since they use their mobile for making the few telephone calls now needed in many people's lives. What do those people do for internet? Unless you make the assumption that they don't use internet while they are at home you would have to conclude that they also use their mobiles for internet services. Both the US carriers and Vodafone in Australia report that data revenue now accounts for more than 40% of total revenue from mobile services and that they expect that percentage will increase to over 50% in the first half of calendar 2011. Is it likely that such a strong and obvious growth trend will stop at 50%? I would have thought that was highly unlikely and that the trend for mobile users to increase their mobile internet use will continue to increase. What does that mean for wire line ('NBN2' fibre)? According to the Australian communications media and the no-nothing commentators generally (who seem to be now suggesting that the national 'NBN2' will deliver 1 gbps speeds before a spade has hit the ground in anger) wireless will never be a serious medium to deliver data to residential customers of internet services. I wonder how they explain away Telstra's figures of a continuing increase of residences without land lines and the continuing increase of the use of mobile devices for internet usage? I mean - they seem to be actual facts showing trends that are undeniable. What "fact" is offered to support the view that "wireless will never be suitable"? None? Wishful thinking? Nonsensical statements pulled out of wherever nonsensical statements are pulled from? Maybe more people will begin to question those statements over time - but given the general and overwhelming stupidity of people who make such comments - perhaps not. It seems likely that all of the mobile companies in Australia will continue to offer faster mobile data services at ever lower prices and that more rather than less people will see the wire line financial mill stone at its ever increasing prices something their personal budget neck would be better off without. Why pay $A30.00 or so to make a few voice calls (at ridiculously expensive prices) when you have no need to other than it allows you to pay even more money to get access to the internet? 12% of residences don't see any need - it seems likely that percentage will only increase. The unbuilt 'NBN2' is being aimed at an increasingly smaller market. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Thursday, August 12. 2010Time To Start Again......John Linton ....or more exactly, it's long past time to start again. Assuming the final version of the Telstra Wholesale ADSL2 contract is signed off later today we will activate the web site and user facilities order forms for ADSL2 services on Telstra exchanges marking a 'return' to where Exetel started from over six years ago. By 'return', I mean offering current services to end users via a Telstra network rather than only using Optus and AAPT. The wider coverage by some 300% in terms of area but less than 20% in terms of numbers of possible customers doesn't sound very significant and that may well prove to be the case - after all Telstra's retail operation has saturated the coverage area for several years and has made financially unbelievable offers to the customers on each ADSL2 enabled exchange as it has been activated. So why mention such a 'non event'? Well, there are two main reasons. The first is that the whole communications industry in Australia has been changed by the current government's intervention and irrespective of what happens now more changes will continue to happen over the coming months and years that will not be 'good' for companies of Exetel's size and type if we continue to pursue the paths we have 'trodden' since we began the business. It isn't a question of the 'NBN2' being a threat to ADSL or anything of that sort. It's a question of how Telstra sees the future of government intervention in a part of the economy it has less than no knowledge of and, as illustrated by the Krudd craziness, how much damage they do before it all ends in tears and therefore what Telstra does to meet the various scenarios it sees as being the various futures. If you think I'm wrong in saying for the past two years that the industry is changing try Telstra's CEO's views in explaining Telstra's drop in annual profit: http://www.smh.com.au/business/telstra-dives-as-fullyear-profit-falls-20100812-1207v.html http://www.smh.com.au/business/telstra-reinvents-the-reinvented-20100812-120h0.html The recent price reductions by Telstra retail are not likely to be the last ones (see article above) - Telstra can reduce ADSL2 prices to whatever it finds its necessary to do to achieve whatever market share and financial objectives it decides to put in place. So all the talk around the different parts of the industry of how much market share such and such company will achieve in various areas based on past events are so much wishful thinking in the chaos progressively engulfing the assumptions upon which such prognostications were made. The 1,000 kg gorilla point remains the only valid point - "How much ADSL2 market share can Telstra have? - Whatever it wants and whenever it wants it." The second reason is that the same scenario same applies to the medium sized business marketplaces that Exetel has been slowly developing an ability to provide services to - in the past there was zero way that a company like Exetel would consider buying wholesale business services from Telstra but today's Telstra appears to be very different to El Sol's "wholesale customers are parasites" view of the communications business. Obviously this is no road to Damascus epiphany but simply one 'path' that the future split up of Telstra might make necessary - though in most futures I can see there seems to be very little reason for Telstra to persist in wholesaling anything - but that is for then and we have to deal with now. Companies like Exetel have no choice in taking this view of the 'now' because we could have been in a position of AAPT selling their retail business to one pernicious (to us) company (iinet - which they did) and selling their wholesale business to another pernicious company (TPG - which they apparently came close to - but didn't at this point in time but could at any point in time from tomorrow onwards). This would have been extremely inconvenient to us - to put it mildly....and it will certainly happen, that the wholesale business will be sold to someone, at some time in the future. Personally, I don't see that Telstra's new ADSL2 pricing is sufficiently attractive (even including the up front cash credits and discounts) to make any real difference to Exetel's immediate future but I do like the idea of being able to offer ADSL2 services in more regional and especially in some country areas. I also have very little doubt that Telstra Retail will increase the attractiveness of the current ADSL2 offers quite significantly between now and Christmas 2010 and then on into 2011. The wider coverage will be of some assistance in 'protecting' Exetel's market share over the coming months and what eventually transpires will have to be dealt with as things continue to change. On balance, and by no great margin, I think I would prefer to be Exetel than some other providers in the next few months. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Wednesday, August 11. 2010Plus Ca Change - Plus Ca Meme ChoseJohn Linton Life seems to be continuing to be getting more complicated and time demands imposed by 'out of left field' incidents, events and just plain threats seem to be increasing. I can usually deal with my daily comms industry 'reading, over night email and other start of day business tasks in a little over an hour before writing this blog over a second cup of tea or coffee but since I returned from the annual break that time has become closer to two hours - sometimes more than that. Perhaps it's just my ongoing inability to understand what is happening around Australia? I read the reports on the coalition's alternative to Labor's mythical 'NBN2' yesterday and again early this morning and I was struck by the arrant stupidity of the Australian communications media and the even greater stupidity of those members of the Australian electorate who managed to get their inane comments in to print. I have no intention of wasting your time reading a rehash of my statements over the past almost three years since Krudd announced 'his' national broadband policy in late 2007 (the one that would deliver fast broadband to 99% of Australia's population with the first houses turned on by December 2008 for a total cost of some $A5 billion. (funnily enough I didn't see any comments about that). What I did read were comments by 'experts' (mainly Australian communication media children) that started from the assumption that Krudd's 'NBN2' was somehow a rational reality and the coalition were insane to propose that it wasn't. Since when did a flagrant political face saving farce become "a reality"? Never mind - Australian's (like Americans and Brits) get the governments they deserve and the socialistic cargo cult mentalities prevalent in such a large percentage of those people are the preferred life style belief of the stupid and the lazy. In the mean time we have to run a business in today's world and try to deal with the constant uncertainty that engenders. Telstra's recent 'updates' to its ADSL2 plans and its $A200 or so 'welcome back' incentives have shaken up the market, as was obviously intended, and the first reactions are beginning to be seen. It is going to be really interesting to see how much market share Telstra is able to 'buy back' over the balance of calendar 2010 and just how much damage that does to the larger ISPs - I think the damage to smaller ISPs, particularly in country/regional areas of Australia will be immense (I think the damage to Exetel will be pretty hard to deal with too by the way but at least we knew it was coming and made what preparations we could). It isn't hard to work out who the biggest loser will be from the current Telstra initiatives (iinet) but it will be interesting to see which other companies are affected and by how much. Naturally, we only have a passing and mild interest in how other companies prosper or don't prosper as it takes all of the time we have available to deal with our own problems....and there are more of those these days than at any time in the past; or so it seems. Sometime over the next day or so we need to finalise what we will do in terms of offering ADSL2 services via the Telstra ADSL2 network. While we have pretty much established the limits of what is possible we were hoping to see what other ISPs were going to do before finalising the 'line up'. Looking at the information currently available there will be a mixture of competitive 're-adjustments' even from the people who publicly stated that they wouldn't "sell at below cost" because of "Telstra's anti-competitive actions". So much for pomp and circumstance - it obviously hasn't taken long for churn aways to change that pretty silly statement. We also need to provide new wireless broadband plans before the end of August and that is now becoming more interesting than any time in the past. While everyone (within the industry) I talk with remains adamant that "wireless will never replace ADSL/fibre) I think that adamancy is about to be tested for the first time. Optus recent wireless plans address have become much closer to what 50% of current ADSL users are prepared to pay for an internet connection and the network infrastructures are getting a little closer to being able to sustain the performance required in a lot more places than even a year ago. The hardware required is a fraction of the price it was and most of it can be bought on places like E Bay for a big discount off even the carrier's discounted new price. 50% of Exetel's customers use less than 5 gb per month (most of those use less than 3 gb per month) and the price/speed/sustainability equation continues to become more compelling for that large section of our customer base. Only price has been the barrier and that may become less of an issue over the coming months. It seems to me that between now and Christmas the internet marketplace in Australia will change more than it has done since 'broadband' emerged and killed the dial up market place within two years. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
Tuesday, August 10. 2010Chaos Reigns - And Looks Like Reigning For Quite Some TimeJohn Linton One of the problems we, and I assume many other, communications providers, are facing today is not only the uncertainty of what future there will be if the 'NBN2' continues to proceed after next Saturday week but even if there is a change in government what the future will actually become. At the moment there is a continuing 'wave' of price changes and service positioning that makes it very difficult to see what can be provided in the future without losing more money than can be sustained. I am wondering whether it's sensible for Exetel to spend the increasing time that's required to maintain an aggressive 'presence' in the residential broadband markets or simply do what's required to maintain a sensible level of residential business and concentrate on more predictable areas. If the current government is re-elected (which has to be the likelier of the two results) then a sensible person who is responsible for contributing to the decisions made by a company of Exetel's size would have to very carefully evaluate whether or not it would be possible to remain in the business of providing residential services through the even greater period of chaos that would then ensue. I have been expressing the view since the 'NBN2' was 'announced' to cover up the ludicrously stupid election promise of the 'NBN1's' collapse in early 2008 that it wouldn't be possible for company's of Exetel's size to survive the years of turmoil that would then become the residential communications marketplace. I have not changed that view and Exetel continues to put a great deal of effort in to building a corporate sales force and moving its monthly revenue away from dependence on residential ADSL and associated services. While we have achieved some progress in that endeavour we are still a long, long way away from 'safety'. In the, far less likely, event that there is a change of government there has been nothing spelled out about the immediate future of the 'NBN2' other than relatively vague statements about that a coalition government would scrap it and put in place the provisions for providing assistance to the current carriers to extend the coverage of faster services into regional and country areas - probably via wireless broadband - but who knows....I certainly have zero idea. However the turmoil that now exists in the residential ADSL and related services markets will not suddenly end with a change of government and therefore it is almost certainly sensible to make decisions based on dealing with the current situation on the basis that nothing will change very much between now and early 2010 and if the 'NBN2' proceeds then nothing will change for more than two years of progressively increasing chaos. An unpleasant prospect for companies like Exetel.....and quite possibly for other companies too. It seems to me that we have a number of choices which will have to be made once the election result is determined...none of which are particularly pleasant. A true no win situation if ever there was one. I sat in on a fairly low level 'this is how we see it' briefing by Telstra yesterday on their, low level, version of the state of the current Australian communications marketplaces and the companies that provide services to those marketplaces. Nothing new/unknown to us or nothing even very interesting was presented in terms of information but I suppose the interesting thing was some sort of insight in to how Telstra would like 'the world' to see the current state of the various marketplaces rather than how people, such as me, actually see them - basing our two different views on the same publicly available information (there was nothing 'secret' about the information being shared). What was most interesting, to me, was that some of the information disregarded the published 'facts' seemingly to allow some sort of pre-determined view not to be 'upset' by reality.....but that might be too harsh a view. It reminded me that I must re-examine my own views on what is happening in the market places that effect Exetel because it is quite likely that I have made the same errors in trying to fit what I read and see into my own pre-determined view of what is happening and will probably happen. It has never been more important to understand the facts absolutely correctly than it is today and I am becoming fearful that I may be wrong in the conclusions I am forming. Not a pleasant apprehension to permeate a persons thinking. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Monday, August 9. 2010One Thing At A Time.......John Linton .....doesn't get enough done in any given day and that method of 'conducting' a business day is a distant memory. Today their are multiple demands for 'management review and action' that make true multi-tasking an essential aspect of running a company of Exetel's size essential. I had worked the same way for many years up to a year or so ago - basing my working day on a constantly modified (added to and subtracted from as tasks are completed) 'to do list'. Since email became a major part of business working life I have added responding to emails 'immediately' they arrive between 6.30 am and 10.30 pm to that regime. The other thing that 'demanded' changing from a self created list has been the development of a second by second reporting system of all aspects of Exetel's processes and activities. One thing I have stopped doing is to answer the telephone very often and days may go by without me answering either my mobile or my office extension. I can't remember when I 'adopted' the regime of a 'to do list' but it must have been in my early days at IBM in the 1970s because I fairly clearly remember that early to do lists were written on the reverse side of an unused 'punched card' which was exactly the right size to fit in the inside left hand pocket of a business suit jacket. Today, I wouldn't know where, or if, a 'punched card' (almost certainly very few people who might read this musing would know what a 'punched card' was) could be found and the number of times I would wear a suit in a year could be counted on the fingers of one hand. So these days I simply rely on my memory and the constant flow of 'reminders' that email from various sources constantly provides together with the 'tyranny' of Exetel's internal reporting systems that provide a second by second status of everything I, or anyone else, has asked to be reported on together with the 'alarms' for out of line situations from bandwidth usage on the most obscure link in our network, through the performance against set objectives of every person who works in our company to the second by second reporting of the receipt of new orders for every one of our services. So rather than referring to the hand writing on a piece of thin cardboard every so often during the 'week days' to determine what I needed to do my day is now 'run' by the stream of information on a computer screen any time I care to look at it. This information appears in various structured and ad hoc enquiry reports that we have been developing since before we actually commenced operating Exetel as a supplier of data services and has been constantly developed in scope and 'sophistication' ever since and shows no sign of requiring any less effort today than when we started doing it. Included in these feedback mechanisms are suggestions by customers and the multiple times a day I check the Exetel forum.So, apart from the few 'permanent' daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly reviews my day, of whatever length I 'choose' to work, is totally run by screen based reports, emails and other information provided via a screen connected to the Exetel data base....a very different scenario to the decades long use of a self created and updated to do list. So it was surprising to me when I created the first 'to do' list I can remember earlier this morning on an A4 sheet of paper folded in three to vaguely resemble the dimensions of a punched card and not having a suit jacket pocket to put it in I folded it in half and out it in the pocket of my chinos. I don't know what lead me to do this - approaching senility or some misplaced nostalgia for the days when your week's work consisted of less than a dozen or so items you could describe in a few words each and you could gain great satisfaction as you crossed them out as the week progressed. Those were the days. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Sunday, August 8. 2010"Life Wasn't Meant To Be Easy".......John Linton ........as stated by Malcolm Fraser when making some long ago, long forgotten budget cut or other....but does it have to be quite as hard as it is at the moment? I am taking little/no notice of the "election coverage" by not reading any section of the SMH or FR that refers to that sad and sorry farrago of lies and self importance or switching radio stations in the car when some mis-guided person starts to mention any aspect of it. However, I am cheered to hear third/fourth/fifth hand that there is a chance that some of the idiots who voted Kevin Rudd in to a position where he single handed/via massive stupidity destroyed the Australian communications industry will not repeat their mistake of getting on for three years ago and there is some slim chance that the screech owl will not follow Krudd as the most incompetent prime minister that Australia has ever had imposed on it by an illiterate electorate that rivals the 200 AD 'pane et circenses' Roman mobs for knowledge of the character, integrity and capability of the people they are voting for - and apply the same 'reasoning'. So, my vote, like so many other people's, come August 21st will be meaningless as it will be cast in an electorate which has only returned a candidate from the same party since the electorate was created. The party that will provide the next government will, largely, be determined by people who have only been in Australia for less than ten years, are not able to communicate in the Australian language very well and have absolutely no knowledge of any real aspects of how Australia works......and some people have been known to suggest that Australia is a democracy? Perhaps it's just Exetel's ways of doing business with it's customers and suppliers and even its employees but I find it progressively more difficult to understand things that I am told or things that I read that allegedly express other people in the industry's points of view on subjects and events that I was almost certain I understood quite well or at least not so completely incorrectly as the views other people express indicate must be the case. It is reaching the point where I am seriously thinking of simply accepting that my views (and much more seriously the decisions I make based on those views) are nowhere close to being accurate and therefore I must stop making decisions for the company I have a major role in operating. For instance: 1) I appear to be in a tiny majority of people who thinks a government built 'NBN2' is not only ideologically insane but that it will destroy the Australian communications industry. I also seem to be the only person who remembers that it was a political stunt by Krudd to try and cover up the fiasco of the 'NBN1'. 2) It seems that my understanding of a retail/wholesale 'go to market' structure is that prices to wholesale customers are lower (by the cost of sale, delivery and ongoing support) than they are to retail customers is completely wrong and it is actually the other way round.I just can't understand how a supplier who sells via its own retail processes seems to think it can sell to a wholesale customer at prices higher than they sell for retail. 3) I was under the impression that people who are over five years old who buy products/services understand that there is a cost of producing them and maintaining them that means that they can't be "free" and that whenever the word "free" is used in promoting a product or service it's a lie. But not in Australian communications where a significant proportion of customers think that the cost 0f producing mobile phone hand sets or ADSL routers etc is zero and that's what they should pay for them. I could go on but I've either made my point or you, too, fall in to that 'other' category. So it would seem that the very significant changes that have been happening in the Australian communications marketplace that coincided with the election of the previous (or is that current?) Labor government will continue to their Apocalyptic conclusion with the election of the screech owl and Exetel's residential business will be swept away by those events over the not too distant future. Too pessimistic? Maybe that is the case but I have found little to persuade me otherwise and as I have most of our family's financial assets accumulated over a working life time invested in what I believe in, I am in a much better position than most to express opinions on subjects I have long experience with and a very, very significant financial investment in - unlike the vast majority of "commentators". The election of a future government is far too serious an issue to be put in the hands of the people it is currently in. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
Saturday, August 7. 2010Wireless Broadband Revenue Continues To Accelerate....John Linton ....as a percentage of total mobile revenue despite the same unknowledgeable people who continue to mouth the mantra of "there will never be enough spectrum". My somewhat bizarre week finally ended (as so many people in the Australian communications industry still apparently have the luxury of only needing a five day week to achieve their working life objectives) with very little progress made but at least no ground lost in areas that I was afraid might happen. A colleague sent me this yesterday: http://www.betanews.com/article/Clears-way-forward-may-be-with-LTE-not-WiMAX/1281012840 which prompted me to have another look (which I do periodically) at the general reporting in the US communications media about the current status of wireless in the USA. I should have done this a few days ago following Optus responses to Telstra's recent moves in the wireless broadband offering stakes. I didn't find much change to when I first spent 'serious time' examining what I could find a month or so ago other than various indications that revenue from data services on mobile telephone handsets is expected to exceed voice call revenues by early 2011.The referenced article gives some indications as to why this is happening - faster speed over wireless than is being generally achieved via wire line services. I had previously seen this article: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/223579,data-revenue-drives-hutchisons-profits.aspx which seems to mirror the USA carrier's projections so there is little doubt about the trend. Exetel have not made any real progress in establishing wireless broadband as a replacement for wire line services despite the various efforts we have made to date. Sometimes I despair that we ever will but that doesn't change my view that wireless is going to achieve that status sometime in the not too distant future. I think Optus new plans are beginning to get there though there remains a way to go. We would have expected to have made new wireless broadband plans available before now but that frustratingly difficult road is a particularly tortuous path....at least for us. However we will, stubbornly, pursue the target of providing a wireless broadband service that is lower cost than a wire line service in areas where naked ADSL2 is not available until we are able to do that.....because it is the only sensible solution. I think that the current Optus plans are getting close to greater penetration of the lower end ADSL user especialy if the 'magic box' becomes a reality (remember that? HSPA chip set/ATA with two VoIP ports/PSTN port/ wifi/full routing) for sub $200.00 retail). We haven't given up on it but have made little progress in finding such a box over the past year and are not prepared to take the risk on a $300.00 retail box. We are continuing to discuss a much better priced wireless broadband offering with an alternate provider to Optus as it seems less and less likely that Optus can provide a suitable service to companies of Exetel's size. As LTE becomes more widely available the 'speed' issues will become a non event and the recent Optus announcements show that the price issues will similarly 'disappear' over time. What that 'time' will be is not known but even to the 'wireless wallopers' it must be becoming obvious that it will now actually happen for the majority of internet users who don't download more than 10 gb per month which, in Exetel's customer base is 50%. 2010 is a pretty scary year in terms of change. 2011 may well make 2010 look like a period of stability. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Friday, August 6. 2010The Actual Facts Seem To Show A Different Picture.......John Linton ......at least to me. I got through my day of weird situations yesterday without further damage to my sanity and 'emerged' from three of the five situations with slightly better results than seemed likely before the day 'got under way'. So, on balance, it was a much better day than average and perhaps we managed to make a tiny bit of progress rather than falling further behind. I don't seem to be able to, personally, understand why so many people seem to hold views that are contrary to mine on so many aspects of the communications industry, the general economy and events that are occurring right now. I can state with absolute certainty that while coal and iron ore prices and the volume of exports are delivering record balance of payment surpluses (which is great to see) 'main street business' on this side of the continent is not doing particularly well as signaled by residential payment defaults by residential customers and an unprecedented late payment volume by corporate customers. We have tracked these figures very carefully since the first month we billed for services and there can be no mistake about what the current level of defaults are showing......there is not as much money around, even for 'essentials' as there was a few months ago. Now, I'm not saying that the slight rise in residential default and the strange 'hump' in business payment delay is a sign of imminent financial distress. I understand that there can be many other factors that may produce such results. However I am saying that Exetel, and everybody else, would be unwise not to look into this situation very carefully before assuming that all is fine with the Australian economy generally. The other major indicator that I have always used as a guide to how good or bad business is in the communications sector in particular is the number and frequency of contacts that I personally get by new and current suppliers trying to sell us products and services and the degree of 'flexibility' they demonstrate in their approaches. That 'index' is at the highest point that I can remember and appears to be continuing to rise. In many ways that particular scenario is a very good thing for us - bringing with it 'more for less' in most cases. However it does indicate that other customers of those suppliers are not providing the order levels that they previously did and that something adverse is happening that we obviously haven't had the ability to notice as quickly as other companies. Again it could be for very different reasons but my long experience indicates that isn't the case. We have taken a very cautious view of FY2011 and our business plan is more conservative than in any previous year. Given the 'good' results we have had so far it seems strange to now be thinking that we should take an even more cautious approach after only five weeks of the new financial year but that is what is crossing my mind right now. Although our July business was up 12% or so from July last year and August has started in a similar fashion I can't rid myself of the 'feeling' that there is just too much change occurring on a virtually daily basis for there not to be more negatives than positives that we haven't considered. That's not a good feeling to live with day by day. Maybe I am not 'reading the signs' I see correctly? That certainly wouldn't be the the first time. However, it doesn't look like it - I really don't think that times are going to get better any time soon. In the meantime we need to decide whether or not to offer ADSL2 services via the 1,200 Telstra exchange network that provides coverage to approximately 800 exchanges not covered by Optus and AAPT. Because we can't get as good a deal from Telstra Wholesale as they give to other suppliers it is a difficult decision to make particularly because of the 'marketing' activities of Telstra Retail which effectively sells the service to retail customers at up to $30.00 less than we can buy it for wholesale. We should have the 'final facts' on which to base that decision later today to allow us to meet our decision schedule of Sunday evening. Life shows no signs of getting any easier. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Thursday, August 5. 2010Is It 'Red Queen' Time Again?John Linton Some times I wonder whether I am capable of understanding some of the issues with which any Australian communications company, or probably any other type of company, becomes involved in. I understand that the aging process gradually diminishes the mental acuity with which any person is born and I would be no exception to that. I also see examples, Rupert Murdoch springs to mind, of people whose cerebral powers appear, if anything, to become sharper as they age. Perhaps this a particularly bad week - but I seem to be struggling to comprehend several issues with which I am currently involved with more than one other 'party' so I don't know whether my mental powers have begun to decline at an even steeper rate than previously or whether the current turmoil in the various services we provide has reached a point where less and less people really know what they are doing. It is only the fourth day of the week but it appears as though it is at least the 24th day of the week to me I feel so mentally jaded at the thought of trying to understand just what the various issues with which I am confronted actually mean let alone where to start in making any decisions as to what Exetel should do about them. This includes discussions with suppliers, discussions with possible new suppliers, discussions with possible 'partners' and discussions within Exetel itself with people who are acting strangely. With that preponderance of evidence it would seem to me that it is me rather than everyone else I discuss things with that is the problem....which is a pretty significant problem when you come to consider the implications. But is it really me.......consider some of the situations I am going to have to deal with this coming morning: 1) Meet with Telstra to try and comprehend why, if Exetel is to benefit from a small price reduction in ADSL1 port charges, we have to accept a new charge on back hauls that is greater than the port cost reduction? 2) Try to understand why Optus has just decreased their retail wireless broadband prices to below our wholesale buy price and having told us that we must limit wireless broadband plans to 5 gb (with a tiny percentage allowed to be 8 gb) have also begun offering 10 gb plans....and just what we now do 3) Try to understand why "nothing will change" in our relationship with AAPT despite the fact that they have publicly stated that they are going to sell the remainder of the company as soon as they can get the right price and what that means in terms of what we need to do now and moving forward. 4) Meet with a putative 'partner' and try to make Exetel's position clear that we don't regard giving control of our company to someone else for share scrip that as far as we can see is worthless without both giving offense or giving too much highly confidential information away that could damage our business. ...and that is just the first four issues to be addressed today - ignoring the requirements of running the business. Personally, I think the current frantic movements by all and sundry in the communications business is an indication that less people now know what they are doing than ever before. It could well be that this is a good thing for customers generally in the immediate present and short term and it may well be that it all turns out for the best in the medium and long term. It just isn't very pleasant to be trying to make sensible decisions that have some chance of producing beneficial results for your company, your customers and everyone else involved in your tiny part of Australian commerce. I hope that today proves to be more productive than it currently looks as though its going to be and that I can keep my sanity......where did I put Alice's mobile number...I need some hands on advice in how to deal with multiple Red Queens. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
Wednesday, August 4. 2010Hmmmmm - This May Be Harder Than I Exected.John Linton Life in the Australian communications industry continues to get harder with so much changing that it is sometimes difficult to get to grips with just what needs to be done to make enough progress to justify continuing to put the efforts in to continue to have a reason to exist in the various marketplaces in which Exetel operates. I don't say this with any sense of despair or even any sense of some form of self pity but out of a frustration with the what seems to me increasing amount of time each day it takes to achieve anything. Then again perhaps that's just yet another sign of increasing ravages of time on an aging body and the remnants of a once sharp mind. Then again it may just be the result of increasing laziness. I suppose the AAPT sale of its residential business shook me up more than I had expected now i have had time to absorb what it actually means and what it may mean. While I, along with the rest of the people in the industry in Australia and New Zealand, had read the various reports over the last few years of NZ Telecom's progressive write downs of the value of its purchase (for $A1.9 billion if my memory is correct) to the offer price of around $A400 million recently I suppose it didn't really register that running a business of that sort of size in today's Australian communications marketplaces could result in such a huge loss of value and money. It had also never occurred to me that any communications business of that sort of size could be so badly managed that it could actually lose money so consistently without the NZ Telecom owners doing something about it. With the sell off over the past couple of years of a raft of medium sized ISPs/communications companies it has been obvious that the 'old days' of picking a position under Telstra's 'umbrella' pricing had ended some time ago it wasn't until the actual sell off of AAPT that it became quite so starkly obvious that FY2011 was going to be an even rougher 'ride' than my more pessimistic views suggested it might be. So, 'overnight', I have come to the view that VoIP, the 'NBN2' and the effect those two issues have had on Telstra will create a greater degree of chaos in the Australian communications market that even Exetel's current ultra-conservative business plan has allowed for and that, even after an on target July and an almost certain on target August we will need to make some very serious changes to our business to ride out the 'storm' that is looming ever closer. Despite the claims by Gillard and even the RBA that the Australian economy is in good shape we see increasing signs that it isn't. Principal among these is the increasing level of default on credit card and direct debit payments which were bad in the recent bill run and what was most worrying was the significant increase in defaults by small business customers. There are now more business customer defaults/late payments than at any time in our existence and the major issue is that default has gone from zero over many years to a figure that is noticeable. Those are not good signs for the general financial situation in Australia no matter what anyone says. By serious changes I am not referring to fiddling round the edges but doing far more comprehensive things....however I don't know what they would be. The AAPT sale itself pretty much means that there is only an unknown time left for us to buy services from the remaining part of that company which was our first 'supplier' back in January 2004 when we rented our first rack in their data centre for our first PoP and began selling their busines data services. Since that time, although never ever being more than our third largest supplier we do get close to a million dollars a month of business with them and their data centre houses more than 60% of our Sydney based termination equipment and band width. Just the logistical issues of moving that equipment to new premises is not something that can be done quickly or easily but it will have to be done as there is nothing more certain than Telecom NZ will sell off the wholesale business as soon as they can get the right price for it and a company like Exetel can't rely on that future buyer being someone we would be happy to have as a supplier. Similarly it is becoming more difficult to see what future, if any, there is in continuing to deal with Telstra who, it appears to me, is 'losing the plot' itself as it frantically tries to deal with the massive changes wished on it by its own inertia for so many years, rapidly changing technologies that cannot be contained by its own actions on the markets and a government forcing it to destroy its income base and split itself into whatever that fiasco is up to. The results on Telstra are serious enough but the subsequent effects on every other supplier as Telstra lashes out to try and fix the problems confronting it are far worse - at least for the time being. So chaos may well reign and the devil take the hindmost etc, etc. There has to be a more enjoyable way to start your day. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
Tuesday, August 3. 2010Election Campaigns Are Always Simply Based On Lies For The Gullible.....John Linton .......you only have to go back less than three years for Labor's last 40 obvious total lies - more than one broken major election promise for each month by that most incompetent and dishonest of governments Australia has ever been saddled with. I realise that, for the most part, the Australian electorate in general and Labor voters in particular are uneducated buffoons with so little intelligence they wear loafers as they can't tie shoe laces but - give me a break - this time round Gillard via her minder's scripts are breaking all bounds in their lying stupidity. I will leave the general nonsense and simply point out the new levels of lying attached to the one aspect of political life I do know something about - Australian communications. Firstly let me offer the opinion that the so called "Australian Communications Media" appears to be run by teenagers with as little knowledge of the subject they proclaim themselves to be "specialists" in as they have of why they slur their words after their third beer which they appear to drink before writing on their "specialist" subject. I read this arrant piece of juvenile nonsense earlier this morning: http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/regulation/40835-could-tony-abbott-unscramble-the-nbn-egg and was totally sickened at the crass lying (see if you can spot a single reference to support any claim in it) perpetrated by any sort of infantile media hack that got past what passes for an equally infantile editor and actually sullied my screen with its uncredentialed lying and insulting attempt to 'persuade' me that such electronic puke could be taken seriously with its ridiculous claims: Some facts about the 'NBN2' that are not only not mentioned in this (and similarly stupid pieces appearing from Sussex Street via the mouths of the Screech Owl and Stupid Stephen) need to be re-stated: 1) The 'NBN2' was not "a carefully considered piece of infrastructure reform" at all. It was a stupid piece of political nonsense devised over 48 hours in a few plane trips as a panicky attempted cover up for the just about to be fiasco of the announcement that the 'NBN1' had to be canned because it was even more stupid than this hastily devised 'NBN2' that was announced to replace it. 2) No person in any government department (such as Treasury or Communications) and no member of the Labor Party (including the Screech Owl) was consulted and the "carefully considered major infrastructure reform" was a politically drafted (800 word press release) which was the first anyone in Australia but Stupid Steven and Krudd heard about it. It was brought in to being by two panicked and inexperienced politicians attempting to cover up their about to be exposed stupidity and major lying promise prior to the previous election. 3) No costing or logistical analysis was done and has still not be done to this day. No-one knows what an 'NBN2' will cost or how it is a better option than anything else that could be put in place and certainly no attempt at any analysis of what would be best for Australia (as a whole) or all of the very, very different constituent parts of Australia was ever considered nor is planned to be considered. 4) Sussex Street, via the Screech Owl, is delivering the mantra that "Attempting to stop the 'NBN2' is like opposing building railroads or major highways in the 1800s"...which surely not even a Labor voter would even give passing acceptance to - the attempted analogy is totally inapplicable. In 1870 here was no alternative to an improvement in the roads between the various towns/cities and no alternative to railroads to move freight - and, further, a current service (the PSTN/ISDN) didn't have to be ripped up and thrown away to make people use rods and railroads. The alternatives to the 'NBN2" are many and varied, cost the taxpayer nothing and preserve ongoing competition. 5) Beazely, Conroy et alia, a group of people who collectively know less about communications than probably any other subject in the universe, are repeating the other Sussex Street analogy about the inability to turn omelettes back in to eggs....a particularly stupid analogy and one that has even less applicability than the "opposing the building of railroads" stupidity. NOTHING has been done to make the 'NBN2' a reality yet that couldn't be undone in a stroke of a pen. To cancel the whole fiasco on August 22nd would cost less than a billion dollars (probably far less but I wouldn't know) and it would save Australian tax payers something like 50 to 100 times that (no-one could possibly know what this insane piece of political chicanery could eventually cost. So, for the record, there is no time frame to build the network (a few areas MAY be connected in the second half of 2011) and thers is still no costing associated with the 'NBN2' and no justification for spending one cent of tax payer money on it and there is ABSOLUTLY NO reason for a government to get involved in such a commercial venture and ABSOLUTELY no reason to continue with it beyond August 22nd. I am not alone in my views: Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Monday, August 2. 2010Either Life Has Recently Become More Difficult.....John Linton ...or the recent stimulation from having a holiday has worn off. There are more issues to deal with this month than there were last month - even allowing for the fact that I was away on holidays for the first third of last month and benefiting from having been on holidays and the 'euphoria' that brings with it for the remainder. Apart from the new concerns caused by AAPT's exit from the residential market places there are the ongoing financial incentives being offered by Telstra to make it even more attractive for current ADSL1 users to move to Telstra ADSL2 services and the sting of lesser alternatives being put in place by other ISPs to counter Telstra's newly flushed "marketing funds". Looking at the current 'offers' in the market place is becoming more and more confusing and, even with assistance that I have never had in the past I am not sure I really understand what some of the most recent changes are signaling. Given the overall pleasantness of the sunny day yesterday and a general disinclination to look at the deluge of figures involved with the 'analysis' of ADSL2 offerings in today's marketplaces while there were other more pleasant ways of spending the time I did no work on looking at new aspects of ADSL2 plans for Exetel. It was always going to be a pretty demanding year for residential ADSL and while I was happy enough to see that the July results yesterday were better than planned I really couldn't summon up the interest to see how much more could be given away to 'chase' that dying market. I am going to be interested to see what Optus Retail now does in response to Telstra Retail's amazing cash splashes and I suppose whatever they come up with will spur some other suppliers in to similar efforts and therefore it is obviously better to wait and see what new levels of give aways are established before wasting any more time in attempting to find a way of appealing to the 'jaded palates' of the residential marketplace's "swinging buyers". I spent 30 minutes or so earlier this morning making a list of aspects of ADSL (and related services) that would add up to a compelling set of reasons for a customer to stay with or select Exetel as their communications provider - a task I have undertaken many times in the past. It took me less time than usual to establish that it would not be possible to do what the vociferous parts of the market place want without going out of business in less than three months and wiping out over six years back and mind breaking work by a lot of dedicated individuals. It is a very difficult set of issues to be dealt with.My inclination is to concentrate on the Region 2 and Region 3 areas (which I have a personal liking for anyway) which are beyond the reach of the cash splasher's/gb givers as they are beyond their ADSL2 network reaches. Perhaps we have finally entered the 'death zone' - the period in a product/service's life when it becomes no longer financially sensible to continue invest in it and the start of the phase of ceasing to offer it? That time for ADSL, has to come eventually and, depending on the fate of the 'NBN2' which will be known (at least for the next 3 years) in less than three weeks time, it could now be seen as being less than three years which effectively marks the start of the bail out in most if not all past circumstances. I have lived through three such events in the past and they weren't very pleasant be associated with. However they are an inevitability in technology and they are part of the excitement of the technology businesses. Perhaps we will find new inspirations at the start of this new month and will be able to cut through the current morass of me tooism and unsustainable give away offers that dulls the mind whenever you try and make sense out of a sensible 'move forward' strategy or even quarterly plan. It is becoming very difficult to resist the urge to simply concentrate the limited resources in our possession on interesting and 'doable' aspects of the business rather than 'wasting' them on issues that may well prove to have no resolution and already past their useful life. But then...if we had ever taken that path.....we would not still be in business. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010
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