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.
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