Saturday, July 16. 2011TWTWTWJohn Linton It has been an interesting week in some ways though wasting a day at the TIO 'mediation' meant that it was difficult to do all the things that needed to be done in the remaining time available. In residential ADSL areas one of the most noticeable things is the increasing absence of Exetel customers who churn away to TPG and the increase in Exetel customers who previously churned to TPG returning to Exetel. It's very noticeable because mid 2010 churn aways to TPG accounted for over 50% of all churns (the vast majority of the other 50% being to Telstra Retail). Telstra Retail now accounts for over 80% of all churn aways, out of a much lower daily total than a year ago, with the remaining 20% often not including even a single churn to TPG. Even the churn aways to Telstra Retail have reduced to a point where more people churn from Telstra to Exetel than the reverse each day which has not been the case since the start of the Telstra 'win back campaigns'. Nice to see. Something that continues to surprise me is the number of new mobile customers that come to Exetel each day. We have never been a very 'attractive' provider of mobile services but quite early in the 'life' of our switch to supplying Optus mobile services we are gaining four times, sometimes five times, more new mobile customers each day than we ever did when we were providing mobile services via Vodafone.The more interesting 'fact' is that we are getting many more 'multiple' new customers where they buy two, three or sometimes more mobiles at a time. These are standalone mobile services not linked to a 'bundled' ADSL sale which surprises me even more. I would like to know what is generating these sales - but I have no idea. Corporate VoIP continues to 'boom' with 59 new corporate customers signed up in the first 15 days of July. While people like me and Exetel have been using VoIP to run a very 'sophisticate' business linking two different countries and two Australian States for over four years the recent accelerated take up by so many new Exetel business customers has surprised me in terms of the diversity of small businesses that have 'shaken off' all their previous doubts about VoIP quality and reliability. The savings for small businesses changing to VoIP are huge as most small businesses pay far too much for their telephone lines and calls and have not ever looked past getting those services from Telstra who are at the very top of over charging for such services. It is not unusual for these new small business customers to reduce their telephone costs by 75% by changing to VoIP. It is only two weeks in to the new financial year and we are still not meeting all of our July targets on a daily basis but there is a much better 'feel' to the start of FY2012 than there was to both FY2011 and FY2010. Perhaps its just exhaustion from the constant daily negatives that we have dealt with over the past 30 months which have dulled the sensibilities....that could be a factor....but it doesn't account for what I currently see in the daily results nor what I read about our 'competitors' in the media and pick up from our suppliers and other sources. I very much get the 'feeling' (a strange word to use for someone whose last 20 years of business life has been based on analysis and planning) that we are at what a very famous prime minister once said about infinitely more important events: "It is not even the beginning to the end but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning" .....that is the feeling I have. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 11 - The number of dimensions in the multiverse according to Professor Michio Kaku (a comment on Einsteins' "mind of God") Friday, July 15. 2011How Screwed Up Is Exetel's Analysis........John Linton .....if Internode's recent statements are correct? As a matter of course, and like all commercial entities operating in all markets, we have constant/continuing discussions with all of our suppliers of whatever size on the cost of the goods and services they supply to us. Our objectives, like all other buyers is to reduce/improve our purchase of services while, equally obviously, our suppliers position is to maintain, sometimes increase the prices they charge us but at the very least increase the volumes we buy from them. In this aspect of commerce nothing has changed for 4,000 years. So I was surprised to read this earlier this morning: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/14/internode_under_wholesale_price_squeeze/ I, of course, cannot possibly know what prices Telstra extract from any other company other than Exetel but I do know in my quite long 'history' in buying from Telecom Australia and now Telstra that I have never seen any price of a commercial service rise. In those instance, ADSL services in Zones 1,2 and 3 the pricing has fallen slightly for Exetel on three occasions over the past year and from what I know to be the fact for some other wholesale customers say has fallen far lower than Exetel currently pays. So I did wonder why Internode made these statements blaming Telstra price increases for its decision to 'raise' its retail prices - it almost certainly isn't true. Using words like "remaining financially viable" is a very strange statement indeed. What could be true, and appears more likely, is that Internode is being forced to 'raise' its prices because it is making less profit these days than it is used to, perhaps needs, to maintain its comfortable life style.....something it shares with every other company that Telstra Retail has assaulted with its ongoing programs of massive give aways to increase its market share.After two and a half years of these assaults by Telstra Retail life is very difficult for most if not all of the ISPs that use Telstra Wholesale services. Doubtless Internode find it as difficult to deal with the constant churn aways that most other ISPs have been subjected to over the same period as every other provider. Our current view is that Telstra Retail will continue with their 'win back' programs for the forseeable future and that Telstra Wholesale will continue to lose ADSL circuits from the wholesale customers who still buy from them. Companies like Internode that 'cherry picked' (to use a favourite Telstra expression) the major city exchanges to provide their own DSLAM connections are not 'loved' by Telstra Wholesale (for the obvious reasons) and whining about port pricing in Zone 2 and 3 exchanges is kind of infantile. If Internode et alia are feeling any 'price pressure' it is simply because Telstra Retail is taking back some percentage of their lost customers from the exchanges where other ISPs have installed DSLAMs in enough numbers to start making the ROC in some of those exchanges less attractive. In Exetel's case it seems that Telstra Wholesale is very 'anxious' to make it worth our while to sign up customers from exchanges where AAPT/Optus/Internode/iinet/TPG etc have their own DSLAMs rather than from Telstra Retail. I suppose that is a logical thing for Telstra to do but it seems to be far, far away from the actuality of an 'independent' wholesale arm.....targeting Telstra Retail's competitors hardly seems even handed - at least to me, it seems the direct opposite....but then so many of my views seem that way these days. So it appears that times are tough at Internode. It appears they are tough at other Australian communication providers. I know they are tough for Exetel. But, if you look again as I have done - I can't blame that on Telstra Wholesale pricing which certainly hasn't gone up for Exetel in any area of our business (not that it has fallen that much either - except when taking customers from non Telstra DSLAMs). Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 12 - A number much used in religious tracts and used to arbitrarily divide the calendar year in to meaningless one twelfth segments instead of meaningful one thirteenth segments.
Thursday, July 14. 2011Real Life - Harder To Plan For Than Commercial LifeJohn Linton I spend so much of my time attempting to plan various aspects of Exetel's activities, both short and long term, that I seldom get around to actually looking at my personal objectives - in many ways my 'life' has been subsumed into Exetel's 'life'. I got around to thinking about just what I might like for myself over the coming year for the first time for many years on the ferry to the TIO mediation meeting on Tuesday and I realised I hadn't really got any personal objectives beyond continuing to work to improve Exetel's operations and the working lives of the people that Exetel employs. It seems that I have not had a sensible look at what I really would like to do for myself for so long I couldn't remember the last time I did that. So I made a start on a list of things I would like to do over the coming year both within Exetel and by devoting more time to non-Exetel things. While I have made a list I haven't yet got around to checking it twice. Unfortunately my first attempt at this exercise for many years produced almost totally negative things - things I would like to stop doing rather than things I would like to do. Now, while that could be a temporary 'mood' thing (and I will certainly take that in to consideration for the next few days) it is some sort of indication of how wrong I have got so many things over the past few years and just how far my understanding of ethics/morals/responsibilities/reasonable social responsibilities have diverged from those of the people and organisations I spend my 'working day' dealing with. Perhaps it was simply the distaste bordering on disgust I felt on that ferry trip at the thought of having to spend so much time dealing with the ethicless TIO personnel and their even more ethicless legal representatives and the sheer pointlessness of spending so much time in doing so. But I suspect it was only the catalyst to realising that I do spend so much of my time dealing with similarly worthless organisations and the people within them and the situations such people force upon Australia generally. Perhaps I have reached the stage in life where "Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent" has proven to be true and I have become as bad as the people I deal with and that is the real source of my general dissatisfaction with so many aspects of my daily life. It is something to think about. I will now make some changes to my own working life now that I have realised just how dissatisfied I am with so many aspects of it and just how far I, and others, have moved away from the base reasons for 'creating' Exetel in the first place. It is not a sensible human condition to despise so much of what you do for either yourself or for the people you associate with. I think the antidote for this malaise brought on by being in the same room as TIO personnel and their legal no nothing advisors/advocates is to make a list of all the people I meet each day whom I get positive feelings from and get rid of the violent dysentery reactions occasioned by the TIO 'contact' - perhaps, like recovering from strains of dysentery, these black dog symptoms will pass in a few days..... ....so speaking of dogs, a man takes his dog to see a movie and as he and the dog are leaving a mate of his taps him on the shoulder and says "Hi Bill whats with bringing your dog to the movies? Bill replies "well he quite often enjoys a good movie". So his mate says "I could see that - he laughed at all the funny bits and he seemed to get quite emotional in the sad bits". Bill replied "Yes I found that very strange too. He hated the book". Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 13 - generating paraskevidekatriaphobia for those who react to any friday falling on the 13th of any month. Wednesday, July 13. 2011One Day I Will Be Brave Enough.....John Linton ....to set better targets - meaning more aggressive targets. Having spent 10 hours yesterday in 'mediation' yesterday I am confronted with the prospect of adding that 'lost' time to today's work load. In the past I would have been able to cope with that additional work but today, and I suspect for some time, it is well beyond my remaining physical and mental capabilities. It's at times like these that I envy other people I observe who seem to be able to cope with any sort of additional work load without any apparent effort and certainly no 'complaint' - such as I am currently making. I would hate to think that I have joined the unending ranks of the 'other' type of "worker" but it may be the case. I suppose everybody has a use by date. We continue to measure the new financial year's progress on a daily basis and while that might seem an absurd application of micro management we believe it's necessary to check on the business plan assumptions. Perhaps it is just the sloppiness of our planning processes, especially as we involve more people in those processes, but setting financial and sales targets is never an easy set of tasks especially in difficult times and rapidly changing conditions. So, while time consuming and possibly over reactive we go through this process each year on the basis that if we get the first month's results right then we don't have any 'catching up' to do in the second month and, if we are particularly careless, in subsequent months which inevitably leads to missing the year end targets - assuming the company is still in existence if it continually misses targets. Over the first twelve days of July we are running either on or only slightly behind all of our targets with the exception of residential ADSL to which we have made two changes over the past few days to bring it back in line and may have got that aspect of the overall business 'back on track'.....again we will check the daily/hourly results to make sure that is the case. While it may seem obvious that various things, such as commercial enterprises, should have detailed targets and measuring progress against those targets should be done very regularly it doesn't seem to actually happen as often as most people would think.....even though almost every Australian (and some high percentage of people around the world) are introduced to the micro measurement of 'goal achievement' from kindergarten onwards..... .....and I think that's the real problem. Possibly all but the children of migrants and a relatively low percentage of other school attendees get used to making little or no effort, and what little effort they do make is almost always too little and too late, to prepare for tests, assignments and exams from an early age right up until they graduate. Perhaps this is the basis for planning, setting targets and measuring on an hourly or daily basis being a difficult concept for many 'professionals to apply to themselves let alone in a broader sense for the area they work in or for a world larger than themselves? I became aware of this, possible, situation earlyish in my 'business life' and because I was blessed/cursed with an enquiring mind soon realised that it wasn't the measuring of personal performance via goals/quotas set by other people for me - it was that the settings of other people were inevitably based on averages which, by definition can never apply to any single individual. So what I found absurdly easy to achieve other people, despite the rigorous nature of the hiring processes, found impossibly hard. Unfortunately, for me personally, I have never been brave enough to fix this key anomaly in setting up business plans/quotas/targets. This year, once we make July 'happen' I think we should do that...being brave enough remains the issue. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 14 - The isotope of carbon that has provided more help in understanding the world's 'history' than any human or any other thing. PS: For those who have any interest in our law suit against the TIO:
“The
Tuesday, July 12. 2011Dealing With The TIO...........John Linton .......like attempting to teach kindergarten attendees nuclear physics.....they just don't have the required mind development or knowledge to begin to grasp the topic they have set themselves to address....nor any concept of ethics or morality and a complete lack of interest in the topic. I am going to attend the court ordered 'mediation meeting' with the TIO and their solicitors in an hour or so. It will be a complete waste of time as meetings between solicitors always are and any meeting with the TIO always is. If you have ever met any TIO employee, of any level, you will be able see the embodiment of 'human dross' - a human being without a meaningful level of intelligence, the ethics of pond scum and a grasp of morality below that of sewer effluent....and that would be on a good day. The TIO was conceived as a stunt by Telstra to put off the expense and huge effort that would be required to actually provide service call centres that could address the issues then, and as far as I know still, confronting them and was executed by the scrapings of the long term unemployment registers. To say employees of the TIO had zero knowledge of how telecommunications services in Australia would be a wild exaggeration of their competence. To say that a TIO employee had any motivation to do other than accrue revenue to pay themselves an income that is far beyond their wildest dreams would be a laughable naievete. So, I have no expectation that anything at all will be achieved at this 'reconciliation meeting' other to, yet again, demonstrate the idiocy that is the TIO and the ludicrocity of the establishment of such an 'organisation in the first place. Perhaps Stupid Stephen will add to his non compos mentis actions when he 'reviews' the operation of the TIO by disbanding it and replacing it with an even more ridiculous sub department of ACEMA staffed by the current TIO personnel with even more uncomprehending bureaucracy? As the whole concept of a TIO like function is ridiculous it is something incapable of improving as there is no rational starting point. I have an overwhelming feeling of revulsion at the thought of being in the same room as an employee of the TIO which I will have to overcome on the brief ferry ride and walk to our solicitor's offices. I will complete this entry when I return.......now where did I put my nuclear waste protection suit?..... .....so it is now just on 7 pm and I have returned home. I have signed an undertaking which forbids me from disclosing anything that occurred over the past 10 or so hours so I can't mention anything at all other than it was nice to take a ferry to and from 'work' again for the first time in ten years and I remember how much I miss that method of beginning and ending a 'business' day - even though it is winter. On the positive side I have learned some new things about legal processes and some of the personnel at the NSW bar and about some of the judges and I have slightly widened my understanding of some aspects of 'negotiation' in strange/different circumstances to the usual business environment. I did enjoy the sandwich lunch, much superior selection in the CBD than is available in North Sydney and that pleasure was added to by the impeccably dressed and well mannered 'server' who kept appearing with different types of water, soft drinks and tea and coffee - goodness knows what that level of 'conference service' will cost Exetel (and the TIO). I will 'publish' the agreed joint statement concerning what, if anything was achieved from this meeting when I receive the final version from our solicitors. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 15 - The average age of a TIO complainant? Monday, July 11. 2011Targets.......John Linton ......usually missed because the time to meet them is poorly utilised? The second week of the new financial year began on Friday and like all long term projects the best way of ensuring ultimate success is to get as much progress made as soon as possible before you let too much of available the time 'slip through your fingers'. Very few people I have met and worked with over the years seem to grasp this pretty obvious concept and doubtless that is why in all aspects of life so many reasonable targets are missed. Like almost everyone else I have ever met I have also missed many targets over the decades but not because I didn't understand the need to break down any long term target in to a series of daily, and sometimes less, targets. From my personal observations over the years, targets are missed for two, possibly three generally ascribed, reasons - the one I cited above where so many people waste too much time and what was an eminently achievable target is missed because not enough of the available time is used to meet the target. The second, and possibly more common, reason is that the people setting out to achieve the target actually don't believe it's possible to achieve and don't make any real effort to achieve it. This happens when poorly qualified or poorly skilled people set targets based on unrealistic understandings of the circumstances and is possibly as common as the time wasting reason for targets being missed. So, as this new twelve month period begins (the period being defined quite arbitrarily by the ATO) the first thing that has to be planned for is that although the ATO has defined the period in terms of financial reporting and all public companies have to follow a financial calendar based on a financial year - all months are different with different events and pressures. So we, and everyone else, find ourselves starting a new reporting year when most of Australia is distracted by school holidays. It also, obviously, starts when many people (especially in small business) are devoting most of their time to sorting out last years paperwork and, those that bother, spending time planning for the new year. This is just one period when achieving revenue or other numbers is not a 'straight line' process and must be dealt with by different companies in different ways. The other most obvious 'soft spots' for a significant percentage of non-leisure oriented businesses in Australia are December 15th to January 31st, the period around Easter and all weeks in which there are public holidays. Pretty obvious stuff. But none of this simple knowledge is what causes targets to be missed as they are in so many cases. As I remembered from my pleasant reminiscing last Thursday evening - the overwhelming reasons that targets are missed are not caused by bad planning, time wasting or even by setting unrealistic targets in the first place. Targets are missed simply because the people to whom targets are assigned (or set by themselves) simply don't make any real effort to reach them beyond the mundane time filling day approach. It seems that too many people to whom targets are given (even when they set those targets themselves) don't do any real work in making them 'happen' by correcting whatever is wrong with their current ways of working. From 'day one' their response to queries as to why the targets for which they are responsible are not happening is a litany of 'don't really know excuses' and other winged statements (all of which ignore the actual facts that are available) that leaves people who have to listen to such nonsense feeling either helpless or enraged....both equally useless emotions. This, as far my personal experience has shown me, and as my conversation last Thursday evening brought back to my mind, is always the case. There is no solution other than to realise that some people will respond to the challenges that a target oriented world sets and some people won't - no matter how capable, knowledgeable or talented they may be in all sorts of other ways. If you have any doubt that this is the case then you are not paying attention to what is going on around you. There is only one solution. Replace people who don't meet agreed targets as soon as it is evident that targets are not being met. The better solution is to put in place a better hiring/placement methodology that will minimize the number of times you hire/place non-target oriented people in positions where meeting all targets is an absolute requirement which they are congenitally unable to understand. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 16 - the age of consent in most countries - though I don't think that was known to many of the females I grew up with during early adolescence. Sunday, July 10. 2011Back In Sydney......John Linton ....normal communications services have been restored and normal temperatures require normal winter clothing although the winds are whipping the north end of the harbour to a white capped frenzy and there is only one boat in sight (with a tiny portion of its jib only set) on this glorious sunny winter's day. We had an incident free coast down the mountains back to Sydney earlier this morning having celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary appropriately last night. Somewhere approaching Sydney we marked the precise moment of our marriage thirty years ago before devoting attention to the joys of driving along Parramatta Road on any Sunday. I caught up with my email and the various automated reports on various aspects of Exetel' activities over the past two days and read some of the communications media reports. One of those reports: again just demonstrates how stupid the Australian communications industry has become over the years - assuming that it was ever any different. Firstly let me say that Exetel had customers on the 'old' PSTN services via all three of its carrier providers and, like every other supplier is in the process of transferring those customers to Telstra's new fibre services. Are the prices for these services "too high"? Well....there is no alternative but to either take the Telstra fibre service or use wireless internet. Did anyone expect Telstra to do anything but charge what a monopoly always charges? Move along - nothing to see here. The other 'story' that seems to be incurring the angst of "the industry" is the new attempts by AFACT to re-engage with ISPs to address illegal downloads via bit torrent et al: I have never met Mr Gane but I was struck by his likeness to Stupid Stephen in the photograph accompanying the cited article....the same slightly blurred thuggish features and the expression on his face of sneering pugnacity. As I said at the time - it was beyond my comprehension how AFACT's 'leagal team' could have managed to so totally screw up the presentation of an unloseable law suit that they did in fact manage to lose it. Their legal team's ineptitude of presentation being commented on by an appeal court judge telling them that they should have won it and giving them step by step advice on how to do so. At the risk of yet again annoying some percentage of people who read these ramblings I dislike the thought of Exetel's services being used by people to steal other people's property just as much as I dislike the thought of them being used to promote child pornography. However, in both these particular instances, the remedies proposed by the totally different 'interest groups' concerned are not supported by Australian Federal or State legislation. Exetel received Mr Gane's threatening letter which simply produced a response of telling him to take his infantile bullying somewhere else. So the industry news, at least in Australia, is once again dominated by the non-news that monopolies price services at monopolistic prices and Australians steal copyrighted material because they can....hold the front page. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 17 - the age I was when I came to Australia Saturday, July 9. 2011My Technical Skills Have Never Been Good...John Linton ....but then the combined technical skills of Lilianfels technical expertise were no better. So for the first time in my local and overseas travels I am forced to use the hotel's public facilities to check my email and write this blog. Fortunately Annette and I were out about and driving to and from Jenolan Caves while apparently the IT resources of the hotel failed to connect my laptop (no wifi) to the ethernet service eventually concluding, according to the nice girl at the front desk, that there was "some sort of problem". Oh well I shouldn't be planning to use it much anyway on this brief break. So it's early afternoon and for the first time in a very long time I have had no internet access - havng forgotten to bring my own wireless dongle with me as a guard against this situation. It does serve to illustrate how much a growing percentage of the population is becoming, if not dependent, then heavily reliant on almost constant internet connectivity. While nothing serious will occur because I can't contact the Exetel intranet and have to use the clunky web mail service minus all my internet files for communications it does irk me. For many other people who have greater needs than mine it would be more than irksome. My most pressing need is to write this blog, purely for my own imperatives - not because anyone else will be inconvenienced, and that is possible via this,, and almost every other, hotel's public access internet. I suppose in the 'old days' I could have gone to a local internet cafe or even the local public library as I remember doing long ago but that proved to be unnecessary - and I must say it's very pleasant here with a very cold beer and the piano player going through his repertoire of old standards in the background. Our working week' finished up quite well yesterday with no alarms and excursions in the first 8 days of the new financial year. Perhaps the various order intakes were not as good as I would have liked them to be but then it is the first week of the school holidays in NSW, and presumably school holidays in at least some other States, and early July is seldom/never a 'busy' week for business/corporate buyers. My main objective for this year is to ensure that our planning and forecasting processes and procedures are shared by more people and to ensure that they replace their current less than stellar guessing games with fact structured analysis leading via constant re-checking to something approaching sensible short/medium term predictions. I think the same re-introduction of rigour is essential in other areas of our company where too much carelessness has managed to creep in to too many of our key operating processes as the company has grown and too little creativity and stricture has been allowed to replace the goal of perfection in everything that the founders of Exetel aspired to and was inculcated into our initial employees - who continue to demonstrate those characteristics today. Of course, such words are as meaningless as any manager's hankering for the old days as exemplified in Telstra's CEO saying he was going to ensure the customer was put first from now on. Easy to say (also surprising such statements have to be made) but essentially of themselves the are totally meaningless....and I fully understand that my silly words fall directly into the same category. Exetel's major problem, as I mentioned several times over the past few years is the fact that we do not have enough 'management' skills within our company having built it, with two very recent exceptions, on recent graduates who were very bright and indicated they possessed the basic characteristics and traits that define a likely capability for managing other people. Over the years this has certainly been the case in some key aspects of management and we have been able to continually grow because almost all of the people hired under these guidelines are now at supervision and management levels within our small company of less than 130 people. But what is missing using this scenario is becoming very obvious - and I know that I don't now how to address the two key aspects of really good management - the ability to look for perfection in every aspect of every function under their 'control' and the ability to put more time and effort in to the development of the people they are responsible for than they do in to their own career development and growth. It seems to me that times are very different today than when I first learned, I was never taught, how to become an effective manager of people (which I am assured I was by enough other people for me to believe it was true - personally I never noticed either way). What I have begun to notice with our own personnel is what I first noticed, and intensely disliked at IBM - a great willingness to learn from people 'above' them and an almost total absence of cheerful willingness to teach and care for those 'below' them. How this is addressed is going to be Exetel's greatest challenge if it to progress as rapidly in the future as it has done in the past Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011
18 - The age I was when I fell in love for the first time. Friday, July 8. 2011The Things We Do For Love......John Linton ....and other irrational reasons. I attended the Accom annual awards dinner last night as a guest of AAPT. I almost never go to such events as, over the years, I continue to see no point in spending any amount of time in environments where it is difficult to hear anything said by someone who is not less than 20 centimeters away from one of your ears and where the wine is from a vineyard of which you have never heard and will take the enamel off your teeth if you are foolish enough to drink it and the food will remind you for the best part of the following day why you shouldn't have tried to eat it. I sometimes wonder where the 'wine' served at events such as these comes from. My mind conjures up some toxic waste disposal plant in the back blocks of Taiwan recycling industrial effluent in a bootleg still and putting it in wine bottles and slapping some fake Australian vineyard description on it. How else do they produce an odour (I can't use the normal word - 'bouquet') of a combination of paint stripper and a long time blocked toilet? In this particular case there was the overwhelmingly unfortunate juxtaposition of a jazz combo that played continuously, very loudly to render the whole scenario impossible. Because AAPT had the premium tables (being the major sponsor of the event) right next to the podium next to which the band was playing - it was impossible to hear what anyone with whom you might have liked to have a conversation was attempting to say. I had hoped to speak with AAPT's new CEO and with the GM of AAPT Wholesale but that proved to be impossible - on the two occasions I/they made an attempt to talk neither of us could really hear what the other was saying although we were almost shouting. This was disappointing because it was the only reason I had broken my custom of never attending such functions. The only time it was possible to hear was when the band didn't play which was when the event MC was using a microphone to make the award announcements or when the 'special guest' (Stupid Stephen) was making one of his even more stupid 'speeches' than usual. Even if I hadn't already developed a vicious headache from the incredible noise that four hundred or so people who had drunk too much in too short a time and an amplified band confined in a space barely allowing passage between the tables Stupid Stephen's address was so anodyne and delivered in his quasi illiterate vocal style (that combines an atrocious ocker accent with aggressive thuggery topped off with a poor choice of vocabulary and syntax) as to be totally forgettable. So when my headache reached real discomfort I made my apologies and left. It should have been a much more useful event and, presumably, for the majority of the attendees it was - judging by the ever increasing noise levels and the amount of laughter. Perhaps it was just an unfortunate time of year coming at the end of a very tough year and the beginning of a new year when people like me are exhausted from the demands of those two 'events'...and I would have thought other people were too. Perhaps that is just not the case and, like so many things lately, I cannot play any useful part in events and circumstances that comprise today's communications industry. As it turned put there was an upside to the evening. Being someone who is always punctual I arrived at the event at five to six for the proclaimed 6.00 pm start although I knew there would be no point in doing that. I contented myself with picking up my name tag and then finding the bar where I cold while away the hour or so before the dinner began. It was a pleasant surprise to run into an old acquaintance whom I hadn't seen or spoken to for the best part of 20 years and we reminisced about the 'good old days' over a couple of Taliskers each until it was time to attend the event. He reminded me of some things I had almost completely forgotten which I do something about next week. The new financial year is now a week 'old' and I am going to celebrate that event by taking half a day off and going to the Blue Mountains for the weekend to celebrate a significant wedding anniversary with Annette. We would normally be departing on our annual 4 week holiday at this time but events have made that impossible this year so an elongated weekend will have to suffice until circumstances change. I desperately need a break. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 19 - The percentage of US citizens that favour Obama's need to raise the US debt ceiling. How do the other 81% think the US is going to pay its bills? Thursday, July 7. 2011How Many Times Do You Try Again......John Linton ....having not succeeded the first few dozen times over 100 years? One of the statements made by Telstra's CEO in his recent announcements struck me particularly. Amid all the 'this person will now be replacing that person and adding greater focus to such and such" was an almost clarion call like (though perhaps that is "hyperbowl"): "We will aim at doing new things that cannot be copied". I thought it stood out because since 'competition' was introduced to the then Telecom Australia it seems to me that every competitor to Telstra simply adopted the view that providing the same service as Telcom/Telstra did at a more realistic (lower) price was all that was required. The really bold and innovative few tried to also offer a slightly better than abysmal service level but, at least as far as I can see, that's as far as it went. There is little doubt that Telstra must have, both now and in every year of its existence, a huge amount of intellectual talent buried under and suppressed by the most bureaucratic and archaic accretion of procedures and processes only a 100 year old monopoly can develop. However it's actually difficult to think of anything that Telstra/Telecom/GPO etc has done over the past century that could be called innovative let alone beneficial to any end user and whatever has been done in the past has been done years after it has been in place in other countries around the world and always more expensively. As I re-read this paragraph, I realise it is a very unkind generalisation of the efforts of, literally, millions of people over ten decades - but at least at first glance it is essentially true. But what credibility can any CEO have who also juxtaposes his 'innovation' statement with this:“Today’s initiatives are further evidence that Telstra is changing by putting our customers first" Is he saying that for the previous 100 years customers never came first at Telstra? What actually did come first at Telstra over the past 100 years if it wasn't customers? I only remark on yesterday's announcements by Telstra because they seem to be more of the same that monopolies always say. No monopoly in the history of commerce has ever done anything but distribute as much of its customer's 'wealth' between its senior employees for as little effort from those employees as possible. It is pointless trying to state that isn't the case - it's an inevitability. However this particular monopoly will, if the 'NBN2' continues as planned, lose it's current monopoly completely. However its old monopoly has generated it more than enough money and more than enough time to create a new monopoly (or service that can't be copied to use the careful phrasing that such an overt claim must be couched in). Personally, I will not be involved in Australian communications (except, possibly, as a private citizen) by the time Telstra creates its new monopoly(ies) if in fact that is both the intention and it has the capabilty. I only thought it was remarkable because it shows that employees can only contemplate the future by conjuring up plans to re-establish a monopoly scenario for the future when their current monopoly is threatened. The problem is that while a 20 year old Bill Gates can create a monopoly by accident it was the 'monopoly' (IBM) that gave him that opportunity at the expense of its own monopoly (of their own innovation of a commercially viable PC) it equally demonstrates that even a monopoly can't create a new monopoly - if only because it lacks the 'vision' to do so. As Cisco has so successfully demonstrated (if the Bill Gates example is not enough) only individuals who have the capability of bringing their 'visions' to market create new services and products which monopolies can then buy up.... ...but then I don't think that is available to Telstra whose current idea of innovation is to "put our customers first". That statement demonstrates why all the other statements are flawed beyond redemption. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 20 - Ideas of what will happen in the coming two decades:http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/02/25-predictions-25-years
Wednesday, July 6. 2011Fibre Services StatusJohn Linton We finalised our 'NBN2' plans for Armidale, Kiama and Willunga yesterday and will advise the Exetel customers who are able to get fibre connections in those areas via email before the end of this week. We have had little success with fibre to date with the possible exception of the Telstra service in Point Cook on the outskirts of Melbourne where, based on Telstra's estimated numbers of connectable houses we achieved a 'market share' of almost 5% of the total - far higher than our overall ADSL market share of a little more than 1%. However in the 'NBN2' sites in Tasmania and the independently fibred 'green fields' estates the take up, at least with Exetel, is miniscule to the point we need to rethink whether we continue with those expenses. The actual 'real' (as opposed to trial) NBNCo connections in the three towns currently available for 'testing' are due to be available from October 31st 2011. Prior to that date the ISP 'trial' participants are being offered the opportunity of offering their own customers the ability to enjoy a free install and no payments for ports or back hauls from 'now' to September 30th. The way Exetel has decided to make use of this offer is to send an email to all our customers who, at least in theory, can connect to the 'NBN2' on the basis that they can trial fibre at no charge from the time it is installed in their premises until 30th September. Up to 30th September they will still pay for their ADSL connection at the current charges for thei selected plan. Before September 30th they must decide whether they wish to swap over to the fibre service (at the same monthly cost as they are paying for the ADSL service) in which case they cancel the ADSL service or if they don't want to do that then the fibre service will be turned off. Seems a reasonable, some might say generous, offer from NBNCo but then they are using tax payer money to fund it so it really only affects you and me in terms of cost recovery. If I was an ADSL user in Armidale I would have no hesitation in taking part in this trial because I could determine, at no cost, whether a fibre service provided me with any measurable benefits compared to my ADSL service. If other ISPs make the pricing of the post September 30th fibre service the same (or lower) than their current price of an ADSL service and it is faster then why wouldn't anyone change to fibre? Of course the major factor in offering the same price, or lower, for fibre in these locations is the charge that NBNCo will make for the service which, as it stands, is much too high compared to Optus (who can't offer an ADSL service to these locations so is irrelevent) but as these towns are only serviced by Telstra then the fibre costs are lower than Exetel pays for an ADSL service there. Currently, at least as far as I can see from the public record, NBNCo is charging (ex GST) $24.00 per month for the port and another $20.00 per mbps per month for the CVC connectivity from the local exchange to the residence. On top of that there is a back haul cost from the NBNCo's hand off to the ISP's POI. These costs are far higher than in any State capital city than Optus charges Exetel but, depending on the back haul cost (currently NBNCo is using a Sydney and Adelaide CBD hand off for the trials) the cost of a fibre connection in these locations is currently lower than that charged by Telstra Wholesale to Exetel. Back of a bus ticket qad calcualtion seems to indicate that NBNCo would charge Exetel around up to $10.00 less for a fibre connection than we are currently being charged by Telstra. That is for the lowest fibre speed - 100 mbps connections would obviously be much more expensive than current ADSL services. So we need to put some NBNCo fibre pricing on our web site before very long but we can't do that until we determine back haul costs outside the capital cities and get a clearer set of time frames from NBNCo about their time lines for activation of POIs in the various locations. As you would expect from a government monopoly there appears to be no desire to use the technological advantages of fibre to do more than meet Telstra's current pricing minus a small percentage which, unless I'm completely wrong in that view, will make a fibre connection in a country town a line ball decision in terms of cost versus ADSL and much more expensive in terms of the large cities - which, of course, have over 80% of all broadband users. Of course, if you want to take a really pessimistic view then you can accept twaddle like this: If there is anything of less value than the words of a politician it is the words of a superannuated pontificator with no 'skin in the game'.
Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 21 - The old voting age which Bob Brown now wants to reduce from 18 to 16. You have to wonder whether he has ever met a 16 year old. Tuesday, July 5. 2011Short Term 'Planning'.....John Linton .....never does anything but waste money. Then again long term planning can waste even more money if you get it wrong.....Telstra's totally crazy attempt to become video delivery service just being one small example.....must have been a full moon when someone came up with that lulu. I have been looking at what was happening in the US and the EU wireless broadband marketplaces over the past few days as we really need to find some way of improving our wireless broadband sales which have stagnated over the past year as we have had no time or resources to allocate to improving our offerings. Without knowing what the ABS statistics will show in a couple of months time it seems likely that the number of wireless broadband users will increase and ether exceed or get close to the number of ADSL broadband users. This is a remarkable 'statistic' (whichever way it turns out) as wireless broadband will have taken less than four years to reach the number that ADSL took almost 11 years to reach..... .....but of course that isn't the real achievement. The real achievement will be that wireless broadband will CONTINUE to grow in terms of numbers while ADSL will never grow beyond the numbers reached a year or so ago - except in counting correction errors. Now, when Stupid Stephen et alia made their 'back of a bus ticket' calculations about estimated demand for a fibre broadband service three plus years ago the number and ubiquity of wireless broadband was very, very different to today and the speed and reliability of wireless broadband was a quarter of what it is today. BUT, "today" is simply a point in time along a time line that stretches more than a decade into the future....it is nowhere close to the realities of the capabilities of wireless broadband that will exist in even three years time - let alone when the 'NBN2' comes close to becoming more widely available....whenever that turns out to be. Wireless broadband growth will not be affected by the 'NBN2' - although the 'NBN2' will be significantly affected by wireless broadband growth in terms of the number of households that will take up the 'NBN2' offering. Why? Because, ignoring all the compelling technological reasons - at the very base commercial level, both Telstra and Optus have a huge vested interest in their wireless networks and no interest at all in 'wholesaling from the 'NBN2'. So, as the past four years have shown, wireless broadband has surpassed, or will shortly surpass, the number of ADSL broadband connections and will then go on to double/treble that number - partly by net new connections and partly by the number of ADSL connections falling. So, more than ever, Exetel needs to find a way of becoming a better and more widely known provider of wireless broadband services - or we need to get out of the wireless broadband business. We have been trying and failing to do that for the best part of four years. Finding a way of doing it over the coming months looks to be as difficult as ever. Perhaps bizarrely, using the 'NBN2' may be the way of promoting wireless broadband - now there's a 'left field concept'. Later this week we will offer all of our Armidale and Kiama ADSL customers a free 'NBN2' service - free installation and free for a twelve month 'trial' period monthly connection. We will do this, because NBNCo will provide the installation free of charge and will make no charge for the port rental and back haul from Armidale to a POI in Sydney. It is a once in a life time 'deal' for end users in Armidale, Kiama etc (of all participating ISPs of course - not just Exetel) and just shows you what can be done with unlimited amounts of taxpayer's money. As I was considering the costs to Exetel of doing this (sales, support, IP, POI interconnect etc which are not inconsiderable) a strange idea hovered in the outskirts of my mind - but just out of reach of being brought into focus. I made a note of the 'bits' I comprehended and will try and make sense out of it today. However there is never a better time to talk to a customer than when you are offering them something 'free' (and in this case perhaps the inverted commas need not be used?). Working life continues to hold surprises and, while I share the view, I didn't enjoy reading this 'confirmation': http://www.smh.com.au/business/survey-underscores-grim-times-for-business-20110705-1h000.html Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 22 - Hopefully the 'F' version will be better than the 'V' version of this undistinguished number Monday, July 4. 2011One Of The Problems Of Being Punctual......John Linton .....is that there is never anyone else around to appreciate your courtesy.....something that I have continued to notice over the years stretching back to my late teens. All three of my daughters have commented on this inherent commercial rudeness and just plain don't give a damn about other people attitude - they obviously inherited at least one of their father's characteristics of being unfailingly punctual.....fortunately they didn't inherit most of the others. It is an ongoing irritation to me in business (I long ago gave up expecting anyone, other than my father in law, to ever be on time for any social engagement) as it indicates that people don't care about their relationships with Exetel which means our business is unimportant to them. While I can understand that Exetel's size is far less than their other customers in many cases I think that just makes it worse as does their "sorry I'm/we're late we....." further indicating that our importance is not worth making any sensible effort to not waste our time. I have always used punctuality as a significant gauge of the level of importance attached to our business by suppliers and have never found that gauge to be wrong. I suppose some people don't mean to be offensive - they have just become so used to being late they don't consider it as any sort of discourtesy - perhaps the stupider of such people think it makes them look busy and important? Because there is absolutely no point in ever expecting people who are late for appointments to ever change their rudeness - it obviously came from their childhood's bad parenting and sub standard education - I have made it work to my/my company's advantage in two ways. Firstly, if I had traveled to a meeting and the person was not immediately available I would wait ten minutes and then leave and not continue any further contact. Perhaps I lost a sale doing that but I assumed the gross lack of courtesy was a reasonable indication that I was not going to win it anyway so I was in fact cutting down on my/my employer's time being wasted pursuing a sale I was never going to get. Similarly, if some one was visiting me in the course of business and was late, by any amount of time, I would change my/the company on whose behalf I was acting requirements to a much tougher line. This usually became taking 10% or more, depending on the degree of lateness from the lowest price I had previously been prepared to pay and use the 'righteous anger' that the lateness engendered to tenaciously stick to that reduced cost. Perhaps because I am such a poor negotiator this rudeness on the part of suppliers has turned out, over many years, to have been a major plus - it certainly has done so in Exetel's buying in more than a few instances. So why are so many people so incredibly rude to consider being late and wasting another person's time so trivial they do it as a matter of course? Perhaps more people should, like me, take the trouble to 'punish' them for their gross discourtesy and make them see that they aren't so much more important than other people? Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 23 - The day in April that few people know about - that explains a great deal about modern 'society'. Sunday, July 3. 2011'Conformity' Has Never Sat Well With Me....John Linton ...perhaps because my schooling, from a very early age, continued to emphasise that copying anything anyone else did was a pointless way of investing anyone's personal time and effort. I read this article earlier this morning: which exemplified how 'sameness' has become more and more prevalent than perhaps it has ever been in the sad history of the human race....and I read this article immediately after: which I was aware of based on Telstra's previous announcement that they were going to try to lift the number of transactions done on line from the pitifully low number currently. I think I commented at the time that it seemed amazing that the company that has dominated the communications industry for the whole of its existence should rank as, probably, the user of the least amount of the communications technology it provides to its customers. I read both of these articles shortly after I had been looking at our competitors web sites as I generally do at this time of the week. I was struck by the close similarities between the five communication provider sites I looked at and realised that if you removed the logos and company names you would be hard put to determine which company was which based on the product offerings. Sameness doesn't quite do it. It was a timely reminder to me that I have done very little, in real terms absolutely nothing, over the past two years to hasten the development of new automation processes for Exetel and I have contributed to no real web site changes/increases in function (main, user, supplier) for at least that long - which is a terrible indictment of a senior manager within a communications company. While we have continued to use our customer's suggestions to correct minor failings or provide small improvements no-one within Exetel has been able to take any sort of 'leap forward' in terms of adding significant new functions. From before the day we started we had put in place the beginning of what would become an iterative process to automate everything that could be automated and to open as many channels between our customers and our possible future customers as we could think of. Over the past two plus years we haven't done anything. There are obviously many reasons for that lack of development - one of them being that we almost certainly achieved after five years of continuous effort, a level of automation that went far further than any other commercial and residential Australian provider. That would be some sort of 'contributor', but the real reason is that we have been buried under the daily burdens of surviving Telstra Retail's thirty month assault on its competitors (which includes Exetel as collateral damage) and that 'distraction' allowed the constant progress on developing our web sites to fall away in terms of daily importance and eventually get no attention at all. When I did a qad comparison an hour or so ago I can see that Exetel's levels of automation are still as good or better (in some cases much better) than the companies I looked at - which was some comfort. Perhaps, assuming I am right in predicting that the coming year will be a little less difficult that the past three years, we will now have the time and the resources to re-build our web sites and, more importantly the functionality that is embedded within them and the processes associated with them....including the processes that require human intervention whenever that is the case. I remember when this was a significant part of my working day but that was a long time ago now and that is a striking condemnation of both me and other people at Exetel. Whether business life is in fact going to get easier over the coming months or not it is essential that we go back to improving and adding to our on line transaction processing systems. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 24 - The number of hours in every day that the majority of humanity wastes.
Saturday, July 2. 2011Quiet Times In Communications LandJohn Linton The new year got underway yesterday and it was a good start in most areas of Exetel's world. While it may seem to be somewhat obsessive to complete all planning and give all employees whose responsibilities change new letters of offer by midday on the first day of the new financial year it is a practice that I have tried to ensure happens for a very long time. It allows everyone within the company to now what they and the company generally is aiming to achieve - at least for those to whom such aspects of their daily working lives are important. The plans we have developed for the coming twelve months are very aggressive in terms of growth in our key areas of operation. This follows two years where are plans were very 'defensive' and, as things have turned out over the past 24 months, they probably should have been even more 'defensive'. I have been looking at what the people we compete with are doing in the areas of the marketplaces that Exetel is most interested in. I do this as a matter of course every week/day depending on the time constraints but I have been putting more time in to this, often fruitless, exercise over the past two months. Of course, I can only 'see' what is on the public record in terms of web site pricing changes and public statements from the various company's spokespeople or what the public companies choose/have to report to the ASX. The ABS statistics will not be available for 8 weeks or so and over that period all but TPG of the public companies will post their year end results which will be the only 'hard facts' available for another 12 months. From what I see as shown on company web sites and the eerie lack of bragging by the usual suspects I would say there will be no 'pleasant surprises' when the year end results are reported. Exetel's year has finished and, like our planning for this new year the results are known to us long before the year ends. We have had a reasonable year with growth just over double digits (down from the previous year of close to 15%) which was very close to the expectations set in our original FY2011 plan. Profit, such as it ever is with our company, was lower than planned for but still was well in the 'black'. In terms of market segments we didn't meet any of our residential targets (some by a long way) but that was more than made up for as we exceeded all of our business targets (some by a long way). We invested slightly more than we had planned to in both personnel and network capability but not by much. Our Sri Lankan operations are far stronger than they were at the beginning of FY2011 and our Australian network is significantly larger in total capacity with an increased level of redundancy built in to it than it had twelve months ago. Two 'quiet years' have allowed us to build Exetel in ways that have prepared us for a period of far more aggressive growth which we begun yesterday. From my observations, which can of course be totally incorrect, I don't see the larger suppliers of communications services being in that position. One indication of a company's intentions of growing rather than 'having a quiet year' is whether they are recruiting or 'right sizing'. Sometimes this has to be made public when it is accomplished by 'slash and burn' - seldom the case in this industry. One way I form an opinion on how competitors are planning their coming year(s) is based on the number of unsolicited resumes seeking job possibilities. In good times that might be around one every 2 months or so. It's currently around one every two or three days (actually four in the past week). Perhaps we have got it completely wrong and this year will be an incredibly tough year as bad or worse than the last two years and Exetel is stupid to be planning aggressively? Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 25 - The best blogs for understanding the state of the world economy: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124768581740247061.html |
CalendarQuicksearchArchivesCategoriesBlog AdministrationExternal PHP Application |