RobertT:
Well I'm kind of pissed to put it mildly. I along with 4 or 5 others was taken for a tour of the Telstra facility and we discussed the issues with Gary and his folk. I really thought they were pulling out all of the stops to get the Tbox working as it should. We were shown an updated version of the firmware that was running at the sort of speed it should have. We were also told that they were doing what they could to get it out before the RWC. Instead they released the additional features firmware and not the performance update. So I was hoping that the performance update would be released just after the RWC. Instead we are realistically looking at another 3-6 months.
And to top it off, my T-box had died tonight and failed to record Mad Dogs.
Well the ball really is in your hands guys.
I've presented the questions and issues I think.
Look, I fully understand if you want to let this carry on and just keep working with the company for as long as it takes to sort it out. As I've eluded to above, it's the sort of thing that can have market impact on potential competitors. However, you also have to question if a competitor would emerge in the market, with a quality product, if this product was removed (by FTA intervention for example).
To balance this out a bit, we have to question if others looking on with product ideas might just say "well if Telstra can't do it with their resource, then there's no chance that we can"....
But we really don't have any clue what's going on at all do we? It all seems a bit odd... one minute we're reading that there will be an update that is ready to go, now it's months away... Was this just a ploy to stop everyone from going 'hell no, I'm sending my stupid box back and getting MySky before the RWC'?
Really, it's becoming more obvious how this game is playing out and if you're not happy then just return it and ask for a credit. I'm sure Gary will sort out anyone who's just had enough.
If you feel that providers shouldn't be allowed to market in this way then complain to the ComCom (but trust me, that is not a quick process!), that's part of what they're there for.
On balance, we do have to remember that without Tbox, MySky is the only like product in the market, so that means they can do with their price as they choose.
Do we feel that Tbox is applying some market pressure? (indication you guys are currently giving is that TBox will be causing mySky to keep their price high and point finger to the value of a lower cost product... )
Edit: One interesting question I'd like to know the answer to, and we'll never know of course... is there internal debate in Telstra about pulling this product and just spending more cash on something with more power and more robust? But is that held up because you guys are simply just accepting what's dished up for fear that if everyone does go off about it then Telstra might just withdraw the product and there will be no product?