John Linton .....at least in the USA:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703551304576261191431583936.html
which is surprising in that all of the US mobile carriers who had introduced unlimited data plans over the past two years had previously withdrawn them prior to the end of 2010.
T-Mobile's latest offering is much higher priced that the previous offers from companies that had previously offered them and has the caveat that speeds will be slowed after the first 4 gbytes so it remains to be seen what actual amounts of data can be usefully downloaded and why this new attempt at the 'impossible' is being attempted by T-Mobile's new 'owners' so early in its acquisition. However it is a brave move against all US carrier previous experience where after withdrawing their 'unlimited' offers they all pretty much set their pricing at around $US30.00 for 2 gbytes.
Exetel has been making slow progress in increasing sales of mobiles with data downloads and our current view is that we will continue to sell more new wireless/mobile services than ADSL services on a continuingly increasing basis - new monthly wireless services exceeded new ADSL services in March and wlil increase that 'lead' in April on current half month figures.That is not some sort of surprise result as the ABS figures for the second half of 2010 show the huge growth in wireless broadband take up versus the practically static 'growth' in ADSL. Exetel's figures are of course totally trivial in terms of the total market but they do represent the confirmation that the growth in residential broadband is very much in wireless - not ADSL.
As a company that realised this would happen over three years ago (along with the thousands of other people with any knowledge about this business) we would have hoped to have made more progress than the trivial amount that we have made over that time....but we haven't and it has taken us a very long time to actually get the product offering 'right' - or at least 'righter' than our previous attempts. We have a very, very long way to go before we can be even vaguely satisfied with the monthly net adds we achieve but we have, for the first time in my opinion, begun to make progress towards that objective.
Our near term objective is to move mobile/data sales to three times ADSL sales by August this year and to five times ADSL sales per month by December this year. While these objectives have a long way to go they are beginning to track that way and we now need to make far more efforts to bring these results to reality. I've said it before but few people agreed with me - the 'NBN2' was "planned" (and I use that word laughingly) based on Krudd and co's pig ignorance of the Australian communications markets. They assumed that ADSL would be the dominant residential communications 'tool' in their ten year build out time frame....no-one believes that now except the totally uninformed.
Once more for the dummies - it won't be. Whether T-Mobile's latest initiative succeeds or not (I would think almost certainly not) the obvious fact is that mobile broadband will continue to get cheaper, faster:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-04-13-comcast-broadband-speed.htm
and become available in more places. While it may never gain 100% of the data user marketplace it will take a very big chunk of the lower usage marketplace that Stupid Stephen is basing his nonsensical 'NBN2' take up figures on.
Seven years ago Exetel commenced in business based solely on providing residential services.
Assuming the company lasts for ten years we will not be providing a single wire line based service by the end of 2013.
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