-We haven't seen any evidence of people dropping off broadband services," said a spokesperson for Optus. -Our revenue from broadband and Internet usage is continuing to increase."
-The number of customers in our broadband customer group grew by 16 percent to 543,000 in the past year," she added.
Optus sees the continued growth of their broadband services, which include Optus Television and telephony as well as the high speed Internet connection service Optus@Home, as the result of its new bundled product packages, which combine two or more products together at a discounted price.
-Customers are very happy with the bundled packages," said the spokesperson. -Around 80 percent of our new customers choose a bundled package, and our churn rate in the past year has been reduced, which we also attribute to our bundled products."
Signs are emerging in the US that people are cancelling their broadband subscriptions, prompted by the sour economy, broadband price hikes and a continuing dearth of online content.
-I don't think people are leaving, but we have had to revise our forecast," said Emilia Wasiak, an analyst at IDC Australia.
IDC has revised its forecast for uptake of broadband services to 2.6 million users by 2005. This is down 60 to 70 percent on the previous forecast, which was made before the events of September 11 and the subsequent downturn in the global economy.
-We haven't noticed any drop-off in customer numbers in broadband. The numbers are tracking as we've anticipated," said Stuart Gray, corporate affairs manager for Telstra retail. He also claims the churn rate has not increased, despite recent plans to cap 'unlimited downloads' to three gigabytes per month. -Customer response [to this] has been in line with our expectations. We certainly haven't heard from all customers, but we think the majority will be fine."
Thats it!!!!! I have been trampled over by Ziggy one too many times. Now he's trying to rub his lies in my face. Well how about I run my car's tyres all over his face. That is unless someone gets him before I do.