Telstra boosts BigPond meter; finalises exec appointments - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Telstra boosts BigPond meter; finalises exec appointments

By Iain Ferguson, 0
May 26, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Telstra-boosts-BigPond-meter-finalises-exec-appointments/0,130061791,120274831,00.htm

Telstra has launched a new usage meter for BigPond customers as part of a multi-million dollar upgrade of its billing system to accommodate anticipated growth in subscriber numbers to one million by end-2005.

The new meter, made available to all BigPond customers on Wednesday/Thursday last week, is updated on an hourly basis, with customers able to track their uploads, downloads and total usage.

The telecommunications heavyweight also launched a new BigPond toolbar, which delivers an always-on bar graph display of current month usage in the header of the Web browser, as well as access to BigPond unmetered sites, Sensis sites, access to online customer support and changes to account management details.

A Telstra spokeswoman said the toolbar and revised usage meter had been developed in-house by technicians at Telstra Research Laboratories.

The new usage meter is expected to be welcomed by BigPond users. A correspondent for the broadband community site Whirlpool said in a recent posting the existing meter had earned a reputation as confusing, unreliable and, in some cases, inaccurate.

The launch comes as BigPond chief Justin Milne finalises his core management team and flags a continuation of the recent monthly offers designed to boost subscriber numbers.

Milne is understood to have confirmed a series of management changes to staff last week, including new top-level appointments in the critical areas of BigPond business development, products and customer service.

Other appointments include those to the role of General Counsel, BigPond Media Services (BPMS) and a new member of the BPMS legal team.

Milne said in a statement issued yesterday the carrier had signed its 100,000th cable broadband customer, recording a growth rate of 70 percent for the 12 months from May 2002 to May 2003.

ADSL broadband subscriber growth is understood to have hit 84 percent for the same period.