John Linton's Personal Musings

John Linton

....the title of an old Agatha Christie story from the 1950s whose title embodied the answer to the convoluted detective work that ensued before the obvious question was asked.

It was brought to mind by an expletive riddled email from a new customer passed on to me by an Exetel residential agent. The essence of the email was the agent had suggested that the emailer change from Telstra to Exetel for his ADSL services which the emailer duly did but then "almost nothing worked for the past three days". He called the agent who, being a one man company didn't immediately respond to his phone calls and rather than leave messages he simply hung up in his frustration. When he finally reached him he deluged the agent with abuse about "this tin pot company (Exetel) and their million inadequacies".

When the agent could finally get a word in he apologised for being unavailable and asked the customer if he had called Exetel to which the reply was he didn't know the number and anyway he shouldn't have to call anyone to get a brand new service to work properly (unable to reach some web sites and slow to load web sites that could be reached) because it was obviously a defective service from that "tin pot company" whose network "was obviously two tin cans and a piece of string". The service was so bad she "couldn't even send emails". So the agent got in his car and drove out to analyse the problem and sort out the issues caused by the "tin pot company". As it turned out he didn't have to sort out anything with the "tin pot company" all he had to do was enter Exetel's DNS settings in the emailer's modem instead of Telstra's. No hint of apology or thanks to the agent - just more abuse that "you should have told me to do that before I've been without internet for a week".

Of course not every customer is like this particular one but, to an extent, the 'cargo cult mentality' she displayed is become a more and more frequent characteristic of Australians generally, perhaps in many other countries. Why should an ADSL customer be required to read the set up documentation for a new service? Why should an ADSL customer be required to make a note of the support telephone number? Why should a customer who is seeking support have to follow the resolution procedures the support engineer is asking them to follow? Why shouldn't the person they are speaking to be subjected to abuse and shouting and constant accusations of "you're just not listening to me"?

This instance just illustrates the attitudes and self importance of the nightmare customer that every organisation has to deal with on occasions. But they aren't "customers" they are just egotistic people who make other people's lives unpleasant as a matter of course whenever they come in contact with other people. Australia now seems to have a much higher percentage of such people than when I first came here in the early 1960s. Australians were very different then to the 'Australians' I meet today. They were much more self sufficient and much surer of themselves and 'complained' very little or not at all about trivial issues - or even big issues. Reading any paper or watching any TV news coverage amply demonstrates the high percentage of snarling complaint ridden expositions of Australian's in this period of Australian history. I wonder whether Australians of today have lost their self accountability which was so obvious to me when I first arrived here?

On a more important issue the latest Sensis survey reveals what I, and many other business people have been saying for long time - despite Canberra's claims to the contrary - business is in recession:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/RBA-interest-rates-economy-small-business-sales-we-pd20110630-JASJ6?OpenDocument&src=kgb

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

27 - The last of the amendments to the American Constitution that make up 'the bill of rights' 

John Linton

......or is it just the feeling that I get every year when we complete the new year's business plan before any of the assumptions prove incorrect?

Two days to go until this financial year ends. Yesterday was another, unusually, strong day across our service offerings and we made more progress towards finalising our 'start of year' promotions - though we need to do some re-consideration. In most respects the planning is now completed for all major aspects of the business with the multiple checking and re-checking processes correcting the remaining mis-assumptions and incorporating the results of the ongoing 'negotiations with the various providers and suppliers as well as continuing to pick up minor errors in the newer formulae and changing minor aspects of bravery or unwarranted conservatism. Whether the realities of the coming financial year have been thought through more correctly than the previous three years remains to be seen. So far in Exetel's 'history' they are usually in the ball park.

One thing has become more noticeable over the last month or so. The level of 'interest' in the promotional residential ADSL plans has 'sky rocketed' to the point that our inbound sales people are complaining that they are becoming overloaded and are requesting we hire more people. I don't think I can ever remember such a view expressed by sales people who earn commission on sales they make.....why would they want to 'share' the commission with more people? I am only semi-serious in expressing that view but I have found it surprising. We are continually hiring new inbound and outbound sales people in Colombo but there are very finite limits as to how many new people you can hire at any given time if you want them trained properly and in the shortest possible time.

Our plans for July are to put in place new, larger, bonuses for our own customers who recommend our services to their family, friends and colleagues as well as, courtesy of our suppliers, an extra free month to the people they refer on the residential ADSL plans. We will also offer those of our customers who do not have an Exetel mobile service a new range of plans at even more attractive pricing than is currently available. We are also considering how we can offer a residential ADSL plan to new customers that would include 6 months free ADSL on a twelve month contract if they also bought a mobile phone service from Exetel. Something like months 1,2,3 and 10,11 and 12 at no ADSL charge on a service that includes a telephone line and a mobile.

The surprising jump in business VoIP sales in June (over 100 new business VoIP customers have been signed with 2 days to go) and the continuing strong growth in corporate data sales (June, I am assured, will be a new record month) are very positive signs for Exetel's overall business growth and we have planned to continue to invest heavily in those two areas of our business. I don't know what our competitors in those areas of the marketplaces have been doing over the past year but whatever it is hasn't been very successful in 'protecting' their own customers. Doubtless more effort will be made by them over the coming year.

So, although the weather round where I live seems to be largely very dark clouds and bouts of heavy rain, there are a few glimmers of sun in small patches - perhaps reflecting the future business outlook for the coming year?

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

28 - on the list of places you must see before you die: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/lifelists/lifelist-zen-garden-kyoto.html

John Linton

....and the decison making capabilities I once thought I possessed seem to have atrophied in to uselessness - or worse.

June continues to finish strongly in almost all areas of the business and hopefully that is a good omen for the new year that begins this week. I have spoken with several of our suppliers, our banks and various people involved in this industry over the past two weeks on business directly related to Exetel in most cases or business generally. The overall view has been that the past financial year has been at best forgettable and in several cases the worst they can remember and I share those views completely. If there has been a harder year in my commercial life then time has mercifully obliterated it from my memory. Undoubtedly getting older doesn't help and I think I am suffering from that increasing disability more than I had expected to. Whatever the reasons(s) I will be very glad to see the end of FY2011 on Thursday night.

So what does a really hard year actually involve? For me the past year has been very difficult because it seemed that every decision I made, no matter how much knowledge and thought I brought to bear on the decision making process, turned out to be at best ineffective and more often than not - just plain wrong. I cannot recall any period in my commercial life where I made so many bad decisions in such a relatively short period. So it seems to me that while general business decisions were very tough the key difference over the past twelve months was my inability to understand what was really going on in so many aspects of the industry generally and our small part of it in particular. Something that I cannot recall ever being the case at any time in the past.

Fortunately for all concerned, the way that Exetel has been constructed allowed my many poor, bad and just plain awful decisions to be corrected before they could do very serious damage. I have never thought of myself as someone who 'cracks under pressure', quite the reverse, but I have begun to wonder whether the past two plus years have been just too hard to have been effectively dealt with by companies and managements and financial resources of our size? Perhaps there really are problems that are too big to be dealt with by any but the largest and immensely strong organisations? I am a fair along the path of believing that is the case despite the fact that whenever I review the many things we have done over the years I don't see, even with 20 x 20 hindsight that we would have been better off making different decisions.

So, as we 'tinker' with the last bits of next year's planning it seems that business is slightly easier than it was at this time last year and that at least some of the people and service decisions we have made and invested very heavily in are beginning to produce positive contributions rather than just drain our scarce financial resources. I really hope that's not wishful thinking. How many of the decisions we have made that comprise this year's plan are as wrong as the ones we made over the past year? We will soon know.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

29 - the age my favourite aunt remained throughout my childhood

John Linton

......remains of FY 2011 - just four days of yet another financial year has gone 'almost before you know it'. We will spend the next four days 'tidying up' our business plan for next year and doing the last of the 'documentation' in preparation for the first day of the coming new financial year this Friday. Where do the years go? I had a very 'quiet' weekend doing virtually nothing except for a delightful dinner with our long term family solicitor and his wife at the Australian Club. After we consumed two of his very old, and immaculately stored reds (with a bottle of white from the club list to go with the entrees) with some excellent food it didn't seem sensible to attempt any further gastronomic comparisons on Saturday and Sunday. You seldom get the chance to drink wines that old because if they were on some restaurant's list you would not pay the price likely to be charged and they would almost have certainly been damaged along the way as they passed through various 'owner's' hands.

So I spent some time looking at the published documentation on the 'NBN2' to date while I listened to Bob Thodey on "Business Today" 

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Telstra-confident-of-35yr-NBN-contract-J74EE?OpenDocument&src=is

(did you see his inability to hide his smile when asked about Telstra's agreement to not compete with the 'NBN2' with LTE?) giving his version of what the 'deal' with the government meant, chatted with Annette, and watched some tennis and AFL while doing other things that seemed more rather than less useful ways of using the available time. When you decide to do something like that, attempt to look at a subject that is as politically motivated and driven by electorate manipulation you find that facts, let alone figures, are almost non-existent. Does anyone else notice this do you think? I would have thought that the Coalition's policy analysts, should they actually have any, would have been able to destroy Ms Faustus and publicly humiliate Stupid Stephen long before now on what is on the public record just by contrasting the public record claims and documentation quarter by quarter since 1/1/07 with the subsequent 'lack of progress' and the ever changing 'figures' such they are.

I have looked at all the public record information in my possession and I can say with a fair degree of certainty that the chances of there ever being an 'NBN2' as declaimed by the current illegitimate government are practically non-existent. This assessment is only based on one unknown. The unknown is that the coalition need to win the 2113 federal election which can't be predicted by anyone at this time. If a Labor Government is re-elected in 2013 then it is impossible to know whether there will be an 'NBN2' as set out by the current lunatics passing for an illegitimate government of Australia; but the assumption would be that they would be forced to continue to spend your and my money on pretending there is some point in continuing to pretend there will be one. So, if there is a change of government between now and late 2013 there will be no NBN - not for political pints scoring reasons but because:

a) Not enough people can be forced to use it

b) It cannot be afforded by the Australian taxpayers

c) In 2013 less than 10% of Australian residents will have access to an 'NBN2' and none of the nastier 'compensation' clauses in the contract would be triggered....

.......therefore cancelling or severely restricting the scope of the 'NBN2' project would be far cheaper than continuing with it.

The published statements and 'figures' show no other possible conclusion - despite all the current hype, or even "hyperbowl", being so carelessly used by the unthinking, the scheming and the just plain lying and/or ignorant. No amount of tax payer money can make an incorrect and just plain stupid government decision right -  F35 anyone? F111? Adelaide built submarines? Aboriginal intervention? Participation in the Boer War? Participation in WW1,WW2, the Korean War, Vietnam, Afghan adventurism, the school revolution, home insulation scheme........I guess you get the point - bad ideas are simply bad ideas - your/my money can never make a bad idea a good idea.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

30 - the average number of millions of dollars the current government wastes every day. 

John Linton

Exetel has very few bad debts - something around 0.2% of total monthly billings - but when a customer does not pay their bill we have always used a debt collection service to recover whatever money we can on the general principle that debts should always be paid by people/organisations that incur them and why should anyone encourage thieves to believe other people should subsidise their lifestyles.

These transactions occur in the 'back ground' of our business and are seldom  'visible' other than as occasional statistics to check on whether there are any problems. However our current debt collector (who we will refer to as "George") obviously has a sense of humour. Perhaps it was a slow week but he sent us this email exchange between him and a non-payer (we'll call him Jeff) that exhibits some of the attitudes of immature debt dodgers and unmitigated liars - I also hope it gives you a smile as it did me;

Dear George,

I have spoken to a solicitor friend of mine, please find attached the log sheets which
prove Exetel has overcharged me. Please pass these logs on to them .I have
spoken to Exetel and explained the situation but unfortunately their
international representatives are heavily accented and communication is
inaudible.I should be billing them for all
the problems and continual disconnection from their 3rd world service.Like I told them , If they don't
get off my back , I will publicly campaign against their poor
service  with all the media I have at my disposal.

If you feel the need to continue
pursueing this measly amount, perhaps you can damage my credit rating in some
manner. Well, I don't have one. I am debt free and make my living touring
Australia playing Texas Holdem. I'm currently in St Kilda , playing tournaments
, drinking whisky and hooking up with hot women. Perhaps you'd like to give
this one a miss and pass the logs on to Mahamoud at Exetel.


Its not the amount, its the principle


Jeff

Dear Jeff,

Thank you for your email it brightened
my morning significantly. Since you are a poker wiz, I will drop my stern 
poker face I often use in such dealings  and lay out my cards. The $63.15 is outstanding and
owed and after discussing this with my client their logs show this has been
explained to you several times. So where do we go from here you may ask? Well
so outraged is my client that they are considering launching a Statement of
Liquidated Claim on you through the local court, the filing fees, professional
costs, service fees etc should bring the amount owing to slightly over
$2,000.00.

To make this clear Jeff that means they
can bankrupt you instantly upon Judgment, now with all this womanising and
whisky drinking I would hope your chip stack would be high enough to cover this
small account. As a man of principle Jeff which you have clearly mentioned in
your response below, I can tell you this my client is not afraid of the cost
associated with taking these actions, they are people of principle too and the amount is not the issue, plus in my opinion if you were to file grounds for defence you would
lose and undoubtedly have to pay their costs. If you are made bankrupt a
trustee is appointed and you are allowed to keep around $35,000.00 per year
before all funds are allocated to creditors – might be something to consider
next time you are planning to  go all in.

As the old poker saying goes Jeff
sometimes you need to know when to fold 'em. Payment details are below:

Regards

George

Dear George,

Ah Re-raise hey, ok you might be holding Aces and my measley pocket
Jacks wont hold up. I'll show this to my solicitor friend and (bed buddy) when
I get back to Sydney, She'll probably advise me to pay the $63 which then I
guess I will be forced to fold> Damn You Table Bullies who always have the
big stacks. Tell me a few things tho George, Please tell me those Ace holes at
Exetel dont get the full amount, please tell me you rake some of that. And as
for bankrupt, well has anyone ever been made bankrupt for under $100 ? I have a
few hundred in the bank, No Assets , No Car , No Children , No debt , I operate
on much less than $35000 a year, but like I said looks like I may be forced to
fold.

Jeff

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

31 - The number of ways to get more comments on your blog according to: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/31-proven-ways-to-get-more-comments-on-your-blog.html

John Linton

....but very productive in several different ways.

We completed the FY2012 business plan 'on time' as well as significantly simplifying the ability to track progress as the monthly check points are reached - which in itself will be a major benefit in both developing future plans and more quickly understanding what is changing in the various aspects of our business. In theory, as is usual at this point in the planning cycle, everything looks bright and shiny with a sensible level of growth and a realistic level of profit. What actually happens remains to be seen - it almost certainly won't go as currently predicted.

However we have more reason for quiet optimism this year than the past three years based on the overall performance of the company over the past few months. Corporate data sales have exceeded their June target by over 25% so far and there is every chance that June will be a record month with over 100 corporate sales made so far. More pleasing than the simple numbers is that every one of the sales people have made solid contributions to the results with our super stars continuing to - well - super star.

The surprising, and hugely satisfying, result this month has been that up to COB yesterday we have made/received 83 business VoIP sales for the month which calling it a 'record' would be a massive under statement seeing those 83 sales (ten yesterday alone) represent over 25% of all corporate VoIP sales made since we instituted that particular sales initiative last July. With four days in the month still to go there is a possibility that we will reach 100 business VoIP sales in one month - such a result makes our current plans for business VoIP sales for 2012 look ludicrously conservative.

The 'new' promotions for our residential ADSL services have also produced good results over June with new daily orders increasing by around 150% each day. There are indications that these order volumes will continue to increase as we add more 'marketing emphasis in July and August. June will be the best month this year for residential ADSL sales by quite a margin with daily order volumes increasing day on day throughout the month. How this translates into the coming financial year remains to be seen but this month's performance is well above what we are planning for the first three months of FY2012.

We are reaching the end of the migration of our mobile customers from the Vodafone network to the Optus network with less than 1,000 users still on the Vodafone based service. There is a much higher 'retention rate' being achieved than we initially expected and, even more surprisingly, there is a significant 'add on' being achieved - meaning that our Vodafone service customers are not just churning over their Exetel/Vodafone mobile service but are also churning over one or more other supplier mobile services at the same time meaning the migration program will achieve very close to a 100% 'success rate'.

We will have a very busy week next week putting in place sales targets and commission schemes and the other details that are required now the overall plan has been completed but it is a great relief to have finished the planning for the new year on time for the eighth consecutive year.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

32 - http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/pictures-you-need-to-see-before-the-world-ends

John Linton

....but still complete failure to execute.

Although there was a flurry of media announcements and reporting on the 'NBN2'/Telstra 'deal' yesterday no-one seemed to read the actual document and notice, let alone comment on some of the weirder clauses. While any, even cursory, skimming of the document would reveal that the two years of "negotiations" must have been very, very one sided (with Telstra 'winning' on every single point) there were a few real 'doozies' that are hard to understand. I have no interest in the 'deal' as such and would always have assumed that Telstra would win everything it wanted and then some - because the federal government had no negotiating position at all - despite any bluster it attempted it just had to get access to Telstra's infrastructure and it had to get Telstra not to compete with it.

So why did Telstra agree to not offer a broadband wireless service for twenty years in competition to the 'NBN2'?

I thought all of the "experts" including the CEO of the 'NBN2' have vociferously and continuously stated that wireless broadband is absolutely no threat to the 'NBN2' and could NEVER affect a fibre roll out in any way? While total idiots, like me since day one of Krudd's lying announcement, have averred that the ONLY cost effective way of offering broadband to remote and rural areas and many regional areas would be via wireless the sensible gubmant spokes people (and the general fools with no knowledge in the media and who vote Labor as an article of being) have continually parroted the line that, because of their personal experiences to date, wireless can never be used as a mainstream internet service. If that is the case then why tie Telstra down to not providing wireless broadband in 'opposition' to the 'NBN2"? Wasn't forcing Telstra to rip up the PSTN enough guarantee that every user will be forced to use the 'NBN2' because there was no alternative?

So, it appears, that Labor's lying manipulation is now exposed as restricting not only commercial choice (and therefore ensuring the highest possible price is paid by all communications users) but it is trying to restrict/kill off technology choice and cripple Australia's  communications future vis a vis the rest of the world.  What other interpretation could be put on such a restriction? Never mind - perhaps it isn't true at all and I have been misinformed.

I only reference that piece of nonsense because it still seems very difficult for Exetel to make any headway in growing our wireless broadband business at even a minimal rate and certainly light years away from the overall market take up around Australia. We have not made any progress towards understanding how we can increase wireless broadband sales in the coming year which is very disappointing and seems to show a monumental lack of 'creativity' on our part and especially from me who has been a very strong wireless broadband advocate for a very long time. Despite all of our efforts over many years now we have totally failed on making any progress into this rapidly growing set of market places.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

33 - a long forgotten number of rpm that was required to have music in your home.

John Linton

........when expectations are promoted by lying.

Doubtless the majority of the electorate have forgotten how Krudd manipulated their stupidity by promising an 'NBN1' built for 4.7 million dollars up and running in significant areas by December 2008. This was his election promise widely stated in the run up to the 2007 federal election. Of course it was total and impossible nonsense but the Australian electorate lapped up Krudd's blatant lies and kicked off the biggest and most expensive fiasco in the history of Federation. When the original blatant lies became exposed, Krudd had the arrogance to invent the 'NBN2' with slightly revised implementation dates and a tenfold 'budget' increase. This allowed the treachorous and even bigger liar (vote for me and there will be no carbon tax while I am prime minister) to almost win the following election (having knifed the moon faced fool after promising her undying loyalty) and continuing on the 'NBN2' folly.

So where is it all at now? Less than 1,000, far less, trial customers in rural Tasmania and Armidale in NSW have sub 20 mbps for the most part fibre Internet. The original "December 2008" date is only remembered by people with the memory retention capabilities above those of pond scum which excludes the people who voted for Gillard almost a year ago.Today, so I read, the long debated 'NBN2'/Telstra enabling contract will be announced as finally being signed (signed that is subject to confirmation by the ACCC and the Telstra shareholders). So perhaps more progress will be made from now onwards - assuming all the cable layers aren't already working for treble the money in Australian areas blessed by the 'resources boom'.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/telstra-secures-11b-nbn-deal-20110623-1gg2q.html

So, almost three years after 'significant services' were promised by Krudd to be delivered a start will be made on laying cable to some allocated areas. When the 'NBN' service will be available to any real percentage of users remains undefined and whether or not the 'NBN2' will survive a change of government is as unclear today as it was four years ago. So, you might with every justification say, it was ever thus with politicians promises and what's $A40 billion anyway - it's a number that 99.99% or more Australian voters can't even vaguely comprehend.....and you would be right.....more than that is wasted by the Australian military buying horrendously expensive hardware that never serves any useful purpose every few years.

Well, when you think about it, quite a few things have changed over the past four years. Like what? Well - like:

- the fact that ADSL2 in now roughly 50% cheaper than it was four years ago for a very large percentage of people (including the majority of Telstra users).

- the cost of telephone calls has fallen by more than 50% due to the uptake of VoIP and the resulting slash and burn discounting forced on the major carriers.

- the cost of mobile wireless has fallen by two thirds and the average speeds have increased by over 400% with defined paths for speeds to increase by over 600% before the first 5,000 'NBN2' customers transit a byte in anger.

and that's TODAY....not some undefined estimated date in the future.

Four years on from Krudd's election manipulating lies N0THING has been achieved and all of the assumptions put forward by stupid Stephen on behalf of the Labor party have proven to be wrong.

Well done you - the people whose votes allowed this to happen.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

34 -  with "MG" the weapon of choice for the more discerning of the world's terrorists

John Linton

....which, if it actually turns out that way, will be a pleasant 'relief'.

We made a little more progress towards completing next year's business plan yesterday and have some chance of meeting the deadline of COB next Friday for having a workable scenario for next year. The question in this stage of planning is always just how conservative or aggressive you should be in setting the targets for the various services and how many additional personnel and capital expenditure would be needed for any serious growth.....and in our situation how well the investments in new sales people over the past two years will deliver in terms of their 'maturity', and therefore additional performance, within their given roles. 

So far we have adopted a very conservative approach to developing the planned targets and new hires and have restricted our capital expenditure to a minimum. Over the next three days we will re-look at all base assumptions before reaching a plan that will be put to the directors next week. Our usual practice has been to check the most conservative version of any annual plan and then make some decisions on what 'up sides' we can see that haven't been included in the presented scenarios before agreeing a 'starting' plan that will be in operation from July 1st. As in all previous years we have continued to modify the 'starting plan' as the year progresses.

Over the past two years the major influences on the residential ADSL  markets generally have been Telstra Retails 'win back expenditures' and TPG's "unlimited usage" offers at very low prices. It's unclear what Telstra Retail will do over the balance of this calendar year but we are beginning to "win back from Telstra" as many customers as they are "winning back" from us - and we expect that trend to continue. The other big change is that we are losing very few customers to TPG now and the number of customers "returning from TPG" to Exetel has risen appreciably over the last few months to the point that the monthly net minus has become a growing net plus. So we have included a small month on month growth for residential ADSL in the new plan versus a month on month loss for the previous two years. if things do in fact go as currently planed then the trend reversal in residential ADSL sales will be a surprise 'bonus' after the last two plus years.

The other 'surprise' growth in the FY2012 plan is in both residential and business VoIP which as I noted the other day is 'booming' in both areas. Together with the more sedately growing sales of small business ADSL the plans we put in place late in 2010 are making really pleasing progress towards our theoretical goal of acquiring 100,000 small business customers by the end of 2012. This is one of the key issues in terms of conservative versus more aggressive decisions for FY2012. How many additional sales people do we add in both Sri Lanka and Australia to progress this key 'strategy'? I am tempted to double the size of both sales operations in the short term as the current levels of success these operations are achieving indicate some sort of overall weakness within the companies we are competing with for this business. My only hesitation is caused by the 'shell shock' of the actions in the residential markets over the past two years that caution me to re-think what could happen in the coming year.

So it will be a busy three days to meet the first dead line and then a very intense last week of June to determine just 'how lucky we feel'.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

35 -  apart from being the actual percentage of beef in a Taco Bell beef taco.

John Linton

........occurring at an increasing rate.

We had a record day for business VoIP sales yesterday and it seems likely that not only will June be a record month for business VoIP sales but we may well sell almost 20% of the accumulated Exetel VoIP business customers in this single month.Now that is an extraordinary ramp up over the last few months but, I have to assume, it represents the general business interest in getting rid of the huge expense of 'standard' telephony services by all business types and sizes across Australia. If Exetel's current VoIP sales levels are an indication then VoIP has finally hit the mass consciousness of business users throughout Australia. In planning for the coming year this trend is so steep it cannot be contemplated in forecasting terms.

Perhaps a major contributor to this trend is the fact that we are VoIP Exetel offerings and they are submitting the proposals and signing up the customers directly without passing the leads on to the Australian based VoIP sales team - unless they are large and complex opportunities. The other noticeable change is the number of businesses ordering directly from the Exetel web site. So perhaps a combination of three reasons had made this huge increase in business VoIP orders 'happen'?

Residential VoIP sales also continue to increase at a faster rate than ever before and more hardware is being bought direct from Exetel to allow residential users to get rid of their high priced PSTN. One of the things we must do for the coming year is to re-look at the home hardware offering to improve it. We should be aiming to improve all aspects of residential VoIP (as we always try to) to cater for this obvious increasing demand. Perhaps it is the talk of the 'NBN2' being based on ripping out the PSTN that has made more residential users aware of VoIP?

I have been reading about Telstra Retail offering various FoxTel combinations next week and their continual upgrading of their T-Box offerings. As the ephemeral 'triple play' goes it is hard to think of how any other company can really compete with it. Perhaps their will be new 'studio' derived entertainment combinations in the near future but they are currently insignificant compared to the decade plus long development of FoxTel. So, a major advantage in the residential market places for Telstra if they manage to prevent themselves from asking too much money to use it. Their major problem with a 'triple play' is that they want to continue to price gouge telephone PSTN services instead of providing a sensible VoIP solution so that remains something for them to overcome.

We will try and complete a sensible approach to the business and residential VoIP markets by the end of this week.The growth of 'acceptance' of VoIP after all these years has caught us by surprise and we will need to much better understand what resources will be required to adequately address these opportunities.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

36 - Apart from the section in the 1968 Australian Copyright  Act that most concerns ISPs over the past few years.

John Linton

I haven't had a chance recently to assess what is happening in the EU regarding wireless broadband actual experiences. My long term ex-colleagues who used to keep me up to date have both left the industry and, last time I heard from them, are both enjoying their retirement courtesy of long time employment with their final employer. Because of Catherine's unknown departure to her new job with IBM in the UK our usual end of financial year vacation has been canceled so I won't have the opportunity of doing my own testing and therefore I am having to rely on the public record for information which is never going to give any real operational information. It's only important because of the changes that will happen in Australia this coming year.

Over the next twelve months Telstra's LTE upgrades will continue and both Optus and VHA will 'turn on' their own versions of this much faster mobile technology. Based on my simple download 'side by side tests' I haven't seen any speed improvement in the test Telstra service I use to do a rough estimate of what happens in the 'real world' over time as the different carriers upgrade their wireless networks. If anyone has their own tests we would be happy to add you to the list of people with multiple providers who do 'real world' testing from different locations around Australia. The tests we run are simple - two downloads from known 'good' sites of your choice and five web page time to display the usable page also from sites of your choice.

My personal experiences in both Australia and the UK are that speed improves year on year and the growth in mobile broadband usage doesn't seem to impact these improvements. When I am in central London, which I assume is the densest usage of mobile broadband in that country (both by the huge number of tourists streaming their shots of themselves in land mark places 'back home' and the huge number of business users), I have never had a problem with my 'business' usage in either speed or drop outs. I have also noticed the progressive increase of coverage across rural England and apart from the middle of the Peak District or very remote areas of Northern Scotland I seem to get a usable signal almost everywhere - and we spend time in very remote places.

The remaining part of next year's business plan is to determine what we can do in terms of offering wireless mobile. We have not made much progress in this area of our business and it really is very important for us in the future. Whatever we have done over the past three plus years has not been effective and it's not going to be easy to find ways of improving our performance over the coming year - having come up with no ideas so far. One odd thing about our current wireless users is that a large percentage do not use any other Exetel service. Over the next few days we are going to have to come up with better ideas than we have in the past. The real need to do this is because of the increasing usage of wireless versus wire line in almost every market sector (the exceptions being games players and illegal down loaders).

So, the start of another demanding week.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

37 - The Psalm I have always thought of as applying to working in the communications industry

John Linton

.....replacing the wet, cold and very windy weather that seems to have been with us since the beginning of May. We always used to enjoy sailing in winter in Sydney because although there was never much wind the sky was almost always bright pale blue and cloudless and the cooler temperatures made the harbour far less crowded and outside the heads completely devoid of any other craft. So a pleasant day to celebrate my youngest son's 25th birthday and have a pleasant family lunch. It's days like these that remind you why you live in Sydney and forgo the attractions of so many other places around the globe. Then you turn on the TV news and are confronted by that nasal snarl from Ms Faustus and remember the massive downsides. I wonder whether some aide has explained to her the difference between "dungeon" and "dudgeon" yet? Did that woman never get an English language "ejjikation"? She is a real embarrassment being head of the, as she pronounces it, Strylyun gubmant.

So back to prosaics. I caught up with my industry reading among which was this brief piece:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/former-telstra-executive-phil-burgess-slams-nbn/story-e6frede3-1226077276035

unremarkable apart from the re-iteration that the government has mandated ripping up a faster fibre network already in use that has two competitors and the analogy he used to describe the government monopoly building the 'NBN2': "It's essentially a start-up company like the Snowy River Scheme...without knowing the difference between snow and water,". Despite the pleasant winter weather a combination of a Labor government and a ultra dumb electorate tends to lessen the value of a temperate climate that, despite claims to the contrary, has, is and always be beyond the ability of venal politicians to affect....irrespective of how Ms Faustus et alia plans to bankrupt the country to accomplish less than nothing.

One of the issues we have had to deal with in finalising next year's business plan is how we cope with the 'NBN2' trials that are now beginning to take place. I am not 'across' all the details of what will happen over the next twelve months or so but part of the capex for the coming year is to pay for the various cross connects in the various locations so that Exetel can connect a small number of customers to the 'NBN2'. We have just completed the cross connects for the Armidale and Kiama trials in NSW and are in the process of connecting the cross connects for the SA trials. Victorian and Queensland cross connects have been broadly planned but I am not sure about WA. We have had Tasmanian/'NBN2' cross connects for some time.

While any serious delivery of 'NBN2' services is an unknown time in to the future we are now planning to spend increasing amounts of 'real money' to try and ensure we fully understand what could be offered at some future time. I am still of the opinion that the best future solution for our needs will be to buy any 'NBN2' services that actually are delivered from Optus or, perhaps, some other aggregator. It is far too early for any real consideration of that scenario so in the mean time, and providing the cost burden is not too onerous, we will continue with a 'direct' relationship with the 'NBN2'. That premise is not based on thinking that the NBN2' will actually deliver anything better than current ADSL2 within the next five years, nor even delver anything more useful in more places than ADSL2 and wireless will do over the next few years....it is based on the possibility that Telstra really will be forced to decommission the PSTN in various areas.

I have never believed a word spoken about the 'NBN' and now the 'NBN2' in terms of engineering capabilities or commercial pricing - and I still don't. However I do believe that any version of an 'NBN1/2' future depends on having no competitors/ripping up the PSTN. If I think about, which I do constantly, Exetel's future then we have a need to be able to offer services to one or two market sectors that need a broadband bearer as the method of delivery. If there is no PSTN in an increasing number of locations in the future then we will need whatever replaces it if wireless does not provide that service in those future times. With the limited information available to us today it would seem to me that we would either wholesale the unadorned bearer service from an 'NBN2' reseller or confine our offerings to capital cities - or even subsets of capital cities in some distant future time.

So "what to do about the 'NBN2'" is slightly more immediate in the coming year which does mean we will have to spend money on it with zero financial return. How things develop and whether the next election will happen sooner rather than later and what that may then mean is as abstruse as it always has been.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

38 - the most popular calibre of handguns since the 1890s when it replaced the .45.

John Linton

I was reminded that we processed slightly over 2,000,000 faxes for our business and residential customers in May. This is a good achievement for Exetel as we put this service in place, largely for ourselves, some three years ago and now a surprising percentage of our residential customers use it each month. It was drawn to my attention because the Colombo based program development team did some clever things to increase both the redundancy of the service and to significantly speed up the sending times of any large volume of faxes (our largest business customer sends over 1,000,000 faxes per month). The ability for a residential customer/small business customer to be able to send and receive faxes using their computer/internet rather than having a separate/split telephone line and a fax machine is a great convenience to those people who need a fax service.

We made some progress towards completing the FY2012 business plan but far less than I had hoped for. With only 12 days left before the start of the new financial year the projected work load to complete this essential activity is becoming uncomfortably tight. Perhaps I say and feel this way every year but it doesn't alter the fact that finishing up one year while spending a lot of time planning for the next year is very, very demanding. No matter how 'early' I begin this process it always ends up with a huge number of hours being put in in the last two weeks of June. Perhaps we will make faster progress next week?

We did finalise the 'strategies' for promoting the Optus plans by COB on Friday. The current 'phase' is now in place with a "three months free period for new customers and current customers transferring from Telstra and AAPT infrastructure plans on a new twelve month contract. We reduced the service activation fee for new customers to $20.00 from $40.00 and to zero for current customers. It has taken a much longer time than usually is required to present a new initiative. This is partly due to the level of complexity in how carriers convolute their own wholesale offerings and their, apparent, inability to actually provide straight forward pricing or even provisioning - let alone billing which is an increasingly complex nightmare. Trying to actually work out what a carrier's latest offer means financially (let alone any other considerations) in the short, medium and long terms is becoming almost too difficult. Bearing in mind that they are 'negotiating' different 'deals' with each of their wholesale customers it is no wonder that their billing systems are such a total mess.

We completed the minor re-organisation of the Sri Lankan  company following our decision to not continue the consulting contract of the Sri Lankan General Manager but to promote one of the full time Sri Lankan employees to act in that position. This necessitated some 're-shuffle' of several other positions but no real operational changes. The only unusual aspect of these decisions is that Exetel in Sri Lanka now has a General Manager of an 80 person technology company who is a female in her mid 20s. That would be, as far as I'm aware, very unusual in Australia but unheard of in Sri Lanka.....but exceptional people deserve exceptional opportunities.....and so seldom get them.

I am looking forward to completing the business planning next week and then considering how to inject more excitement in to my, and other people's lives.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

39 - Other than the country code for Italy or, with "steps", a favourite novel from my childhood

John Linton

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2011-06-15-ibm-corporate-longevity_n.htm

More than 40 years ago I began an almost ten year stint at IBM in Australia and while I was never a 'typical IBMer' I never hesitate to acknowledge that what I was taught (directly and by example), and was allowed to learn, during that period of my 20s and very early 30's has affected all of the positive things I have accomplished in my 'business life'. Doubtless this was also due to those years of any person's life being the most formative but I doubt that any other company has allowed so many people to learn so much in so many different ways in commercial 'history'. Key to that learning experience is summed up in the closing paragraph of the article:

Bernie Meyerson, vice president of innovation at IBM. "We are here because we are innovators. We would not be here if not for it."

While it falls in to the category of 'so what else is new' for the cynical the sad thing about commercial life as I have observed it over the decades is that such a large percentage of it is derivative where it is not just out and out copying and even plagiarism.  (ever wondered why EVERY mobile company around the world mis-uses the word "cap" in their plan names?). Over the past week I have become frustrated (to an unacceptable point) by the lack of innovation within Exetel as we finalise plans for the coming financial year. So many of the 'presentations' and discussions I have participated in are based on too much 'me tooism' and I recognise within myself the same tendency to merely base my thinking on derivative sources. 

Of course a business of Exetel's size has a limited scope for innovation but it would not be too far from the truth to say that we have achieved whatever small progress we have made over the past seven or so years by making very serious attempts to do things differently in terms of every decision we have taken at every juncture. There now seem to be few, if any, new ideas permeating our current thinking and while that is an inevitability in commercial life in very tough times it isn't going to be good for the 'company' for the reason expounded by IBM's Mr Meyerson. Not that I think that a start up like Exetel should ever think beyond a year or so ahead - and quite often in these difficult times, more than a month or so ahead, but it is really not very satisfying to plan your business life based on how much money you can make. For those who don't understand the basic premise of 'success' - making money is a by-product of doing something very well - not an end in itself.

During my time in commercial life I have been fortunate, especially in the first half of it to have met and worked with some truly outstanding innovators - Andy Grove, Bob Metcalfe, Toshio Ikeda, Gene Amdahl, Brian Josephson and many others of much lesser repute who influenced me greatly - because of the clarity of their thought and the much rarer ability to talk to people like me in ways that allowed me to understand (at least to the limit of my mental abilities) some of their more amazing ways of thinking and then bringing their thinking to a practical reality. The 100th Anniversary article reminded me, in my very minor way, that there has never been any purpose in copying or derivative thinking - someone else has already done it and been copied. All of commercial success has been achieved by doing something unique and continuing to do it better than any copyist because unique thinking leads to continual unique thinking which is beyond any copyists ability to 'duplicate'.

I wonder if my tired and aging brain is capable of doing that, in its very minor way, any more?

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

40 - the only number whose letters, when spelled, are in alphabetical order.

John Linton

The recent 'getting closer to an agreement' reports of the 'final' deal between Telstra and the 'NBN2' are reaching a crescendo with the predictable nonsense of how 'unfair' it will be from the predictable critics. Off course it was always going to be 'unfair' because that is the nature of monopolies even when an old monopoly is ceding its gouging rights to a new monopoly. Why would anyone with even a vague grasp of commercial/government operations believe it would be otherwise? Of course they wouldn't. So An ex government monopoly will provide some of its assets to a new government monopoly for some amount of money - who cares? As one of my 'children' reminded me when the topic cropped up the other day - "do you remember what I paid for my Telstra II share's?" Maybe whatever Telstra gets for being forced to cede some of its assets will close the gap between the current Telstra share price and what the Telstra II buyers paid for their shares but I doubt it.

The whinging about the Telstra/'NBN2' "deal" and the recent NextGen announcement of its 'NBN2' connectivity offer begins to bring an 'immediacy' (at least in relative terms) to just what it all means in terms of the future provision of residential communications services to Australians....well, in 4 or 5 years time perhaps. Because the hyped up media coverage has been going on for so long and with such a constantly regurgitated mish mash of just plain wrong information and downright stupidity and mindless speculation the fact that the 'NBN2' will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to many individual Australian's lives in any way at all seems to have been overlooked. The only difference will be that Australian's will pay more for some basic communications that they do today and will have less choice in being forced to pay more.

The point about the NextGen announcement was that it was the first of the offers from an 'aggregator' that is willing to provide 'NBN2' connectivity to wholesale customers which means that more of the current 'smaller' providers will be able to provide wide coverage when the 'NBN2' eventually becomes available in a sensible chunk of Australia. We would expect Optus to provide the same service and it seems likely that Telstra will also provide a wholesale 'NBN2' offering. So, a sensible person might ask, "what has changed from the way things would be without a taxpayer waste of tens of billions of dollars. The answer, of course, has always been - "absolutely nothing". Apart from the few percent of the rural and regional population (certainly less than double figures) who will over the coming decade be able to get a fibre service that will cost them more for less than a wireless service they would be able to get by the same time nothing will change for anyone - except it will be more expensive than it is today.

I have found one benefit to broadband users of the 'NBN2'. Current users of ADSL services are reaping major benefits from the carrier's lowering their costs to wholesale customers for ADSL and other communications services to well below the proposed 'NBN2' wholesale costs - and of course the speed for most 'city dwellers' is the same or faster. What this seems to mean is that for the coming years Australians will be getting broadband at lower costs than at any time in the past and also lower costs than at any time in the future.

I knew, if you looked hard enough for long enough, there would be a benefit (other than fooling the Australian electorate) in wasting so much tax payer money. Perhaps a coalition government will still scrap the whole stupidity if there is a change of government in 2013 - still a possibility.

Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
ABN 350 979 865 46

41 - Apart from the Sydney restaurant providing the most spectacular harbour views while you eat