John Linton I read the various reports of the Optus press release of unlimited wireless broadband downloads over the last three days with some puzzlement. As usual the various reports seemed to give different views of what was actually being offered but it seems to be accurately, as far as I can make out, here:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/235348,optus-to-go-unlimited-mobile-browsing.aspx
So, if this is in fact correct then for $65.00 per month a customer can get unlimited internet usage (and unlimited Australian telephone calling) for $65.00 a month. The 'non tethering' (if in fact it is the case) is a negative but everything else seems to be fine except for the price which is not going to be within everyone's range. However an unlimited use mobile telephone usage plus an unlimited data usage for $65.00 per month has to cover all the 'high usage' markets you would have thought.....a pretty significant number. It may be slightly too high to have the maximum effect but Optus obviously have a lot of scope to 'fine tune' the offer between now and Christmas.
The reason I, personally, find it 'peculiar' is that I have listened to Optus 'blandishments' in person and in writing for several months now regarding the absolutely lowest possible cost of per mb data on their mobile network and during the parallel discussions on mobile voice minutes I listened to the extensive arguments made for why costs just HAD to be as high as they were for Optus to 'break even' on providing the mobile services. Now I do fully understand that volumes play the major part in determining buying prices but I have always failed to work out how to make the arithmetic used by Telstra (on ADSL) and Optus on all other services begin to make sense. I really like wireless broadband and have been trying to find a way of making it available to residential users in difficult parts of Australia for the best part of three years - but I think this latest offer by Optus, and what it will lead to in the near future has ended our interest in Exetel continuing to invest in trying to find a way of doing that - at least for the time being.
The other peculiar aspect of this particular offer is it seems to reflect the pointless desperation of the 'terabyte' ADSL plans that are similarly pitched at prices too high to attract very many users and no-one who will actually use the amount of data. They are purely 'marketing' pitches that have 'headline' value but are beyond the budget of all but the heaviest and wealthier users - who, based on everything that is said by Optus themselves, will lose mega money if they use the services as they are being pitched. It seems that the buyers/sellers in today's residential communications marketplaces are locked in to pitches that emphasise gigantic usages that the suppliers are banking on not being used but attracting buyers who also know they won't use them but are 'compelled' to believe they represent value to them.
It hasn't worked in the ADSL market places; perhaps Optus will get it priced correctly for it to eventually work in the wireless broadband markets.
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