Transact -> HOTSPOT

[Bob Edwards]

Stephen Jenkin wrote:
> 
> Here is a brief summary from philip.chynoweth at transact.com.au
> (6229 8040) at the Press Club last night. [Biz Card was about]
> 
> - They are in throes of moving from an 'engineering' group to a
> business. They are addressing Service Levels, services available, billing,
> ...
> 
> - The timing for the rollout is open, but expected to finish in
> 24-36months.  The rate of takeup has been very large & requests for
> installations run at twice the rate they can install.  Residential
> customers will connected first - they have straightforward
> needs.  Businesses have 'full service' needs of a Telco & will come in the
> next phase.
> 

Thanks for this report Steve, I was unable to make the presentation
last night at short notice.

This "argument" from TransACT about takeup rate being higher than
expected has been around for quite a while, but I can't believe it.

If Canberra has some 100,000 houses and TransACT was initially costed
at around $150M, then that come to $1500 per house. I understand that
their takeup rate is less than 50%, so that bumps it to over $3000/house.

If the takeup rate is twice what was expected, then they were only
expecting a takeup rate of less than 25%, so must have been budgetting
over $6000/house (of course, TransACT is costing a lot more than $150M
at this time!).

So, if most folk sign up for a $50/month plan, then their original sums
must have been for 10 years (120 month x $50) to pay back the capital
investment, not including operating costs and interest! I somehow don't
believe that.

Surely TransACTs original business plan must have been for a takeup rate
close to what they are seeing at the moment, otherwise it simply wouldn't
have gotten off the ground in the first place.

I can accept some of the other reasons for the tardiness in getting the
network to most folk, but not this takeup rate PR nonsense.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.