Tasmanians dont understand fibre

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ockel

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#66332 17-Aug-2010 11:27

Offer them superfast internet, make it half price for six months, no upfront connection charge and watch them bust down the door to get it.

As quoted in Commsday:

TASSIE NBN UPTAKE SLOW: However, Malone added that initial Tasmanian take-up of the first NBN services had been very sluggish. “A total of 70 customers have been signed up in Tasmania under the three brands – so that’s not 70 each but a total of 70 between iiNet, Internode and Primus,” he said. “Demand from our point of view is zero.”

“We’re not getting people calling us up to sign up. We’ve got the customers that we have on there by calling them. We’re identifying customers that are on our footprint, looking at those who’ll be better off with NBN products, so where they are going to get a higher speed at the same or more quota for the same price… we haven’t had any cases of people calling us up saying ‘I need to move across now; what do I have to do?’ It’s actually been driven by us.”

Lets break out the checkbook and spend $43bn (in Australia) to get this to everbody. And $1,5bn in NZ.

Might as well futureproof the country for a service that you almost have to pay people to take.

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old3eyes

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#368614 17-Aug-2010 12:36

Tasmania always was slow hence the but of Ozzy jokes..

Regards,

Old3eyes

Ragnor

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#368632 17-Aug-2010 13:25

Not really surprising that in the current economic climate households don't want to spend more than they currently do on internet connectivity.

It's a hard sell no matter how you look at it.

muppet

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#368650 17-Aug-2010 13:51

HEY! I'm Tasmanian! We do understand Fibre!
You should eat lots of it else you don't go poopie, right?

Seriously though, I agree with Ragnor. Most people are happy with their current product and don't see a real need to upgrade. Look at the places it's been rolled out! Scottsdale! I've been to Scottsdale a few times and let's just say, it's not a young place.

PS: I really am a Tasmanian.

Audiophiles are such twits! They buy such pointless stuff: Gold plated cables, $2000 power cords. Idiots.

OOOHHHH HYPERFIBRE!

tigercorp

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#368663 17-Aug-2010 14:06

Ragnor: Not really surprising that in the current economic climate households don't want to spend more than they currently do on internet connectivity.

It's a hard sell no matter how you look at it.

Exactly.

The full speed plans (100/8 with decent amounts of data) start from $130ish on long term contracts. With most households already on ADSL2 in the areas where fibre has been rolled out, why would anyone expect huge numbers of people to change?

ockel

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#368680 17-Aug-2010 14:30

tigercorp:
Ragnor: Not really surprising that in the current economic climate households don't want to spend more than they currently do on internet connectivity.

It's a hard sell no matter how you look at it.

Exactly.

The full speed plans (100/8 with decent amounts of data) start from $130ish on long term contracts. With most households already on ADSL2 in the areas where fibre has been rolled out, why would anyone expect huge numbers of people to change?

So if I'm getting ADSL2 speeds with Telstra on a 25Gb plan with a minimum spend of $2651 over 24 months then I'd be silly to consider a Primus fibre plan (30gb) over 24 months for $2300?

Applying that logic if we replace a copper network with a fibre one at a cost of $billions and cant get people to pay ~15% less for the same product then we should be spending the money on education or health or something else????

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Ragnor

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#368691 17-Aug-2010 14:50

I really like Exetel's pricing for the NBN in Tasmania
http://www.exetel.com.au/residential-fibre-pricing-tasmania.php

I think it's just classic apathetic human nature in evidence, ie: in general a lot of people are slow to change and resistant to changing things even if it's cheaper and faster especially where they have chosen to roll it out.

If they wanted a showcase "case study" with high uptake why didn't they roll it out in a younger, hipper geekier city locality first?

I suspect Tasmania was chosen because it's a sandbox and cheaper to roll out there right?

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ockel

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#368700 17-Aug-2010 15:07

Ragnor: I really like Exetel's pricing for the NBN in Tasmania
http://www.exetel.com.au/residential-fibre-pricing-tasmania.php

I think it's just classic apathetic human nature in evidence, ie: in general a lot of people are slow to change and resistant to changing things even if it's cheaper and faster especially where they have chosen to roll it out.

If they wanted a showcase "case study" with high uptake why didn't they roll it out in a younger, hipper geekier city locality first?

I suspect Tasmania was chosen because it's a sandbox and cheaper to roll out there right?

I think Tasmania was chosen because Aurora Energy had already started down a path towards FTTP with planning etc. There are also greenfield developments (much like the greenfield fibre in NZ) but in usual fashion the new developments are usually urban spread to make housing more affordable and not exactly that "younger, hipper, geekier" locality that might choose to subscribe.

Of course when you think that 66% of homes have the internet and everyone seems to be complaining about the speed (and cost) of their connection then surely more homes would choose to change? Perhaps Tasmania should run some TVC's about water?

An interesting observation from Europe when it comes to alt-net uptake - if prices arent 40% lower than what the subscriber already has then the degree of inertia leads to minimal change. Thats a big price change required to make people get out of bed.

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stevonz

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#368710 17-Aug-2010 15:21

Once it arrives in mainland Australia, I think the uptake will be greater. I'd like to sign up now please.

I live ~16km from the Brisane CBD, but because I live in a new estate Telstra only provides the minimum phone line access... I am lucky though, I was one of the lucky ones to get ADSL1 - the rest of the street use expensive mobile broadband.

I'm sure once the fibre rolls into our streets we'll have a huge uptake of these fibre services.

Cheers, Stevo

ockel

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#368719 17-Aug-2010 15:39

stevonz: Once it arrives in mainland Australia, I think the update will be greater. I'd like to sign up now please.

I live ~16km from the Brisane CBD, but because I live in a new estate Telstra only provides the minimum phone line access... I am lucky though, I was one of the lucky ones to get ADSL1 - the rest of the street use expensive mobile broadband.

I'm sure once the fibre rolls into our streets we'll have a huge uptake of these fibre services.

But for the fact that the Aussie Govt is ponying up $11bn to buy Telstras traffic then I'd expect that around 30% of homes would take up the service. Pretty much the same as has been seen in other markets.

Still if someone wants to spend $43bn of taxpayer money to build a service that only 30% of households will take then why not? Personally I'd rather the Govt gave my household $5000 and let me decide what I want to do with it - if I want to pay for fibre to be connected then I'll shell out that $5k thats been handed to me. If I'd rather stick with ADSL2+ cos it serves me well then I'll find something better to spend the $5k on.

To put in context - that $43bn is the same as another 430,000 hospital beds. Thats 5x as many beds as Australia has now.
If you beleive that the price an international student pays for secondary school education is a good reflection of the cost of a childs yearly education then we're talking places for another 4.5m secondary schools.

We'd rather spend money on luxury services than improving the basic services. People talk about the benefits to health and education but if you cant afford doctors or teachers (or teachers to prepare future doctors) then whats the real value of fibre?

Someone rollout the NZ Institute study that got the debate started in NZ so we can all marvel at the Emperors New Clothes.

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NonprayingMantis

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#368726 17-Aug-2010 15:50

An interesting observation from Europe when it comes to alt-net uptake - if prices arent 40% lower than what the subscriber already has then the degree of inertia leads to minimal change. Thats a big price change required to make people get out of bed.

that's a pretty interesting datapoint. got a link for it?

ockel

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#369014 18-Aug-2010 05:29

NonprayingMantis:

An interesting observation from Europe when it comes to alt-net uptake - if prices arent 40% lower than what the subscriber already has then the degree of inertia leads to minimal change. Thats a big price change required to make people get out of bed.

that's a pretty interesting datapoint. got a link for it?

If you're a client of a large US broker then its available, otherwise it would be "impolite" to provide it.

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smac

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#369088 18-Aug-2010 09:01

I'll go out on a limb here and say the same would happen here in NZ. We see the media crying about NZ's internet infrastructure all the time, but I stand by the statement that average joe blow kiwi wouldn't know ADSL from fibre if it bit them. Average joe bloe kiwi doesn't work it IT, and doesn't work in the media. They watch the news to see how many people died today and when the tax cuts will kick in, not to see when fibre will arrive at their door.

It's a very (very) vocal, but small minority pushing for change. I'm not saying that push shouldn't happen, just that people shouldn't be so surprised by what they see as apathy. As has been highlighted above, more effort needs to go into selling the benefits, not just relying on price point alone.

The fact that bricks and mortar store still survive in the age of e-commerce should have already taught us that the $$ is a small motivator, there are other factors at play.

sbiddle

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#369092 18-Aug-2010 09:06

I was just reading another few articles on the NBN rollout and it's worth pointing out that those 70 customers were initial trial customers who's connections were installed in June.

The official launch of the network occured on the 12th so new customers are now being connected.

What is interesting is the issue with access to buildings and properties. People have to give permission for the fibre to be run to their house during the rollout - if they don't give permission then this can't be done and they are warning of significant connection costs at a later date.