John Linton ...though this time the uninformed criticism is totally unreasonable. (apologies to the late Jim Backus)
I noticed a series of objections on the Exetel Forum over the past few days because of Telstra's recent line activation price increase reported here:
http://apcmag.com/telstra-slugs-new-landline-customers-with-100-penalty.htm
Anyone who has ever read anything I have ever said about Telstra would realise that I am no fan of that company, it's personnel or its business practices. However it is more than a little ridiculous that people criticise Telstra for moving to prevent people taking advantage of a heavily discounted installation price (based on recovering the cost via long term usage) and then canceling the service before the cost of installing it can be recovered. All you can really say is that Telstra was using a cost model that has become outdated due to changing technology and all they've done in this instance is to recognise the changed circumstances. In fact, even a highly critical person like me would say they have acted in the best interests of all customers by leaving the discounted installation price in place for 'real' customers and simply recovered the installation COST plus a profit margin (all commercial companies must make a profit) from the people who were taking advantage of an offer that was never meant to apply to their particular usage.
I'm not commenting on/defending the current prices in terms of reasonability or otherwise but people who are talking about anti-competitive practices and other balderdash need to take a reality check. ANY transaction in the provision of communications costs the provider money and therefore that money has to be recovered from somewhere (in this case ongoing rental of the line and calls made on the line). If that recovery period is, say, 12 months of line rental and $A100.00 worth of calls then someone who orders the line intending to make zero calls and cancel the line rental as soon as the line is active has completely destroyed that cost/price equation - unless someone actually believes you can activate an inactive telephone line for $A59.00 and make a profit - which would make them completely unrealistic which, I suppose, by publicly 'complaining' about the revised installation cost terms they have proven themselves to be.
I have wasted those words on a situation that I care nothing about because it seems to me that Australian communications users and some of the Australian communications media, or those 'vocal' enough to express themselves so petulantly so often (and, yes I realise that print shouldn't be described as a 'vocal' medium), are becoming ever more 'strident' about ever more ludicrously petty issues - or increasiingly often, total non-issues such as the Telstra PSTN line installation charge. Personally I put it down to the 15 plus years of the mobile carriers providing 'free' mobile hand sets followed for most of the past 8 years by 'free' ADSL activation charges plus 'free' modems and even 'free' months. It has always puzzled me that the customers who took up all these 'free' offers seemed to actually believe they were getting something for nothing - but based on this latest storm in a tea cup, that seems to demonstrate that they really did. How just plain stupid do you have to be to actually think that something that involves a cost to the supplier can ever be provided to lucky old you without the supplier recovering the cost of supplying it? Have the basic tenets of supplying goods and services been temporarily suspended in your particular case to allow the manufacturing, distribution, accounting and delivery costs to disappear?
Obviously not for all those people whose lift goes all the way to the top floor.
"Free" is playing on my mind more than usual at the moment because it is being applied to a service that Exetel/I personally find unbelievably compelling. Of course, like the 'free activation', 'free' modem', free handset offers it isn't really free but is, or appears to be, very definitely 'free' so I am re-considering my labeling of customers who are lured into longer term contracts or very high monthly charges to obtain something associated with those circumstances as being 'stupid' - because while I don't think I'm the sharpest pencil in the box I really don't think I'm stupid. The 'free' offer that is exercising my mind is the opportunity of getting free access to a sensibly dimensioned EU HSPA network for 24 months in exchange for some marketing assistance and some (quite a lot really) operational systems code and the assistance required to implement it. So far from free in reality but very definitely 'free' in terms of the operating plan cogs lines - or at least many of them. I'm wondering whether that word 'free' is therefore making me as 'stupid' as I think other people are being when they 'snap up their bargains' based on the claim that they are somehow truly free?
To be able to market any service in any country in any marketplace with a zero cogs for two years has to be the ultimate dream of any person who is involved in starting up in business. I have never come across such a scenario in the time I have been involved in business but that may be my lack of contacts and almost certainly my lack of imagination in even thinking such circumstances are possible....but when I think about it (like the consumer offers that are made by such companies as Harvey Norman of interest free terms for 4 years etc) it really is only deferred payment with considerable up front value (the zillion lines of code)..so it will be a really defining moment later in the year to see if it is in fact as real as it seems to be.
I've always known that "free" is the most powerful word in selling/marketing/promoting anything; as any 15 year old who is introduced to 'business' at school does. I have constantly bemoaned the destruction of the value and meaning of this poor word in so much marketing hype, all over the world and applied to every conceivable product and service, but it appears it is the same hook that has entranced me that has entranced all those other 'fools'.
I think it must be well past time to move on to less demanding things when I can even consider taking up a 'free' offer.