According to Pacific Internet CEO Dennis Muscat the issue we're dealing with today is: -broadband, why bother?"
Citing the most recent OECD report, Muscat said Korea is currently on the top spot of the broadband ladder, with 13 people out of every 100 in Korea having broadband access. Sitting on the bottom rung of the ladder is Australia, ranked 16th, with just .59 of every 100 people having a broadband connection.
-That's why we should be bother, because at the moment we're winning the wooden spoon," Muscat said.
Phil Sykes, chief executive at Request DSL, puts the slow up-take of broadband in Australia down to the -fear factor" of being ripped off by providers.
-All DSL broadband networks are definitely not the same," Sykes said, pointing out how the needs of a SOHO operation with four employees will differ from SMEs. -There are many different value propositions to many different users. That is the way the market wants to be serviced."
-I think a real flaw in the treatment of broadband sales and marketing to date has been that people have tried a one-stop approach to selling into those various markets which just doesn't work," he said.
-Most of the promotion marketing today is about a truck load of information going down the information superhighway and that's it, and that's really underselling and under-utilising what's capable of a real-time broadband network. We believe the primary challenge in broadband today is marketing and selling the value proposition."
Muscat also said that choice and affordability is what it's all about. -Making the entrance point as affordable as possible so it's not a scary choice," he said.
Spelling out the real value of a broadband DSL connection, Muscat said running 256/256kbps on an ISDN connection costs about AU$4992 a year, compared to a 1500/256kbps broadband DSL connection (inclusive of modem) costing around AU$3248. That's a saving of AU$1744 for every connection, Muscat said, adding that in the SME space businesses could easily have about 100 connections. DSL also saves 15 minutes a day in employees' time, which equates to about AU$1009 per employee per year in terms of productivity.
-That's how simple it is. It comes down to adopting a technology that the rest of the world is adopting and we've fallen behind," Muscat said.
-If we want to compete and be known as a technologically advanced company, we've got to adopt these technologies quickly, at a much faster rate than we have in the past."
"Spelling out the real value of a broadband DSL connection, Muscat said running 256/256kbps on an ISDN connection costs about AU$4992 a year, compared to a 1500/256kbps broadband DSL connection (inclusive of modem) costing around AU$3248."
256Kbps ISDN? Is that two 128Kbps BRI connections multiplexed?
$4,992 / 12 = $416 per month.
$3,248 / 12 = $271 per month.
Excellent value...