Bashing Telstra for the right or wrong reasons?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 07 December 2007 12:31

Opinion and Analysis

Telstra say they will appeal the decision, and ‘stand behind’ their advertising of a network that is 100 times larger than competitors and offers customers advanced features beyond voice calls, such as video calls and broadband data.

Telstra have increased the range of ‘blue tick’ handsets which are rated for regional and rural use, as well as nailing down the right type of in-car antenna needed for Next G handsets to get the best rural and regional coverage when driving around.

I’ve personally travelled to Far North Queensland, around the Cairns area, and through use of a Next G handset, was able to make video calls, as well as use a Next G datacard – with an external paddle pop antenna - to get broadband coverage in areas where the only alternative was GPRS, dial-up or a satellite connection.

So, I have personally experienced using Telstra’s Next G network to do the same kind of everyday things I’d do in Sydney or other capital cities, hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away from competing 3G networks, which was, it has to be said, pretty damned amazing.

If we’re going to bash Telstra, what we really need to bash them on is this:

1.    Start getting real on pricing for wired and wireless data usage, offering truly competitive pricing and much higher download limits, and stopping the counting of uploaded data as part of what has been downloaded.

2.    Get rid of download data plans that are less than 1GB per month, even Telstra’s own manual for Next G datacards states that some recent Windows updates are ‘150mb’ in size – if this is the case and Telstra are telling this to us, why even bother offering a 200mb plan? Why? It’s just ridiculous. We live in a gigabyte and terabyte world that will soon be superseded by even bigger bytes. Let’s relegate megabytes to the 20th century when they were the ‘next big thing’. We’re in the 21st century now, after all, with petabytes and exabytes due to replace gigabytes and terabytes over the next few years.

3.    Stop the fighting with the government on building a next-gen fibre network, and work out a deal to get it built, ASAP.

Who can forget when Telstra launched an ‘unlimited plan’ for their cable network? No-one could believe it, but it was true, for a short while. And then Telstra did a total backflip and re-introduced download limits, generating massive badwill among customers.

Many Australians might have forgotten as it was years ago, although plenty of people reading this likely remember very clearly.

Yes, if Telstra were to drop prices, they would make less money every year. But every customer that has left Telstra to go to a competitor means less profit for Telstra anyway.

Why not keep customers through better pricing, and have them become evangelists for you, recommending you happily to their friends, instead of ‘hating’ Telstra for surprise additional bandwidth charges, high prices for services or other reasons? Why does Telstra have to be the most expensive telco in Australia? Why?

It really does seem to be economics and customer service 101. Keep your customers happy, or you won’t keep them. Be truthful in advertising. Keep up the good work on Next G, which is undoubtedly the best wireless network in Australia to date, but let’s see some realistic pricing along the lines of Vodafone’s 5GB for $39 per month for wireless!