John Linton It's very early days in our HSPA initiative so its impossible to make any real judgements on how it will progress over a realistic amount of time but some things are a little clearer.
As with every new iniative we have been involved in we have written the required code more quickly, and far more cleanly, to interface to a supplier's systems than they have although they aren't doing it for the first time (merely adding another wholesale customer to a process they must already have in place). As we have gone through that experience several times the HSPA start up glitches haven't surprised us or even caused the levels of frustration such isssues have on previous occasions.
There were some minor issues with our own systems (particularly with 'porting' mobile numbers which are more serious in terms of automation which we didn't expect ) and we will need to quickly address those issues over the next few days. The logistics of despatching sims and the end user processes of validating and enabling the sim on line once it has been received all worked without a problem and the first HSPA customers are connected and, based on the feedback so far, are happy that the service performs as they had hoped - and as our own and our 'volunteer customer' testing had indicated it would.
There are already people using the Exetel SMS over IP application and at least three people using the Exetel VoIP from three different handsets so it may well become 'true' that by using HSPA on a mobile hand set the customer can take advantage of the very real cost savings of VoIP versus the lowest available 'mobile' call charges.
I don't know whether to be unhappy or happy with the number of applications we have received so far as I didn't have any particular first week number in mind and there's still two days to go to the end of the 'official first week'. What I am happy with is the quality of the work done by the programmers and the provisioning personnel involved who have completed a complex set of tasks in a very short time frame. It is another reminder of what first rate personnel Exetel has.
I can see that there will be many changes to our original broad plans for HSPA and that those changes will have to be made after we have had a chance to digest the information we will get from the first few hundred HSPA users. I will buy myself a Nokia N96 (providing the VoIP facilities can be validated as being available) or some other handset if they can't to ensure that any claims we may subseqently make about ease of set up and quality of use are valid for the non-technical phone users such as me.
I have no concerns about the computer users as the HSPA 'stick' is plug in and go and my simple tests of using it in North Sydney, Mosman and in the car show it works just fine.
One issue we are going to have to address is to find a source of E169s that allow us to sensibly compete with Telstra and Optus/Optus Virgin and, to a lesser extent against Vodafone and '3'. The current price of an E169 to Exetel from Optus is a major cost burden and we have to solve that problem by finding a, legitimate, source at a realistic price. We can source the old version for less than $A50.00 landed in Australia but that isn't a good solution. My view is that if a $A50 cost is available for a superseded model then the new model should be available somewhere in the world for not too much more than that.
The same applies for 3G handsets. Exetel definitely doesn't want the hassles of providing subsidised handsets on long 'contracts' but there has to be some way of providing a benefit to end customers without having to take silly financial risks. I know very little about those processes and even less about which 'hand set' will be the best way to go so that's a difficult task for us.
I see that Optus continues to get bad press (though a good deal of it seems to be derived from Telstra's new bad-mouthing hack - querulous quilty) about 3G coverage, congestion and slow speeds. Personally, my own testing has shown none of those issues to be present and the testing of another 30 people in different areas of Australia have also shown no issues - I wonder what the reality is?
I must go and buy myself a new mobile handset on this beautiful Sydney 'summer's' day.