BigPond blasted: can 14,000 net users be wrong?

By Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 05 December 2007 15:27

Opinion and Analysis

PC Authority magazine has published results of the largest ever survey of Australian consumer IT buyers and the consensus of the 14,000 respondents is that Australia's largest ISP, Telstra BigPond, is a dog. Their views are at odds with reality: less than a month ago, Telstra was boasting BigPond's revival with market share climbing to close to 50 percent of total retail broadband customers. This is the second year of the PC Authority survey which was carried out online mainly to PC Authority readers but also to the online communities at www.overclockers.com.au, www.whirlpool.net.au and www.atomicmpc.com.au.

The survey's architect, PC Authority editor, Nick Ross, said: "Last year, Telstra BigPond came bottom of the entire survey. But this year, while it didn't come bottom, its performance was just as bad. Out of 2472 BigPond customers who voted, only 54 percent were satisfied with customer support. And while two-thirds were satisfied with reliability only 27 percent were satisfied with value for money (52 percent were dissatisfied). Most notable of all was that 52 percent would not recommend BigPond to a friend."

On PC Authority's star rating system, which reflects an average of responses to various questions, BigPond rated only two stars (poor) but fared better than its New Zealand counterpart, Telecom NZ's Xtra which rated only one star (dreadful) and the notorious Dodo Internet, which was ranked as the worst performer. Of Dodo, PCAuthority said: "only 44 percent were satisfied with reliability and, despite its 'cheap' prices, only 46 percent were satisfied with value for money. A final nail in the coffin was 54 percent of Dodo customers saying they would not recommend the ISP to a friend."

It was a very different picture of BigPond painted by its boss, Justin Milne at Telstra's investor day briefing last month,  when he said: "It is a story of high double-digit growth in both [services in operation] and in revenue, but most importantly, it is a story of growing market share and ARPU together...Today our market share is around 48 percent, with no sign of the trend changing...Underpinning our growth is the combination of great access products, plans that suit our customers and the innovative contact and applications our customers clearly value highly. The market is rewarding our mix, customers have voting with their feet and their wallets and we've gained a lot of third-party recognition through a range of industry awards during the past 12 months."