Paul Woods

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In short… Competition ROCKS!

Moving into your first home is a very exciting time.  We have watched for months as our house was built from scratch. 

One of the last things to do when moving into a new home, after shifting and unpacking all the boxes, hooking up the electricity and the gas… is to open land line telephone and broadband accounts.

I called Telstra to set up the landline.  They said that they needed a techie to come out and ‘check that everything was in order’ because it was a new house.  All that despite only a few weeks earlier the house was was cabled into the Telstra network by an approved licensed contractor.  Weird, I thought, but anyways I kept listening…

Here was the first of the bad news.  “Sir, we need to book an appointment 10 working days from now for the contractor to check all the connections”.  That’s right - 10 WORKING DAYS - ie HALF A MONTH!! until someone would check to see it is ok, let alone connect our landline phone. 

“… and there will be a new connection fee of $299 as well”.  WHAT!  $300 bucks and a half a month wait just to get a phoneline that we will hardly ever use, infact the only reason why we have it is for emergencies, the every once and a while 45 minute on hold phone calls, and some sort of internet connection.  You can’t be serious.

“… yes sir, sorry about that… is there anything else I can help you with?”  NO THANKS!

Is it just me, or is that just a little slow, and expensive?

Enter the competition

Thank god for Virgin (… thanks Branson)

Virgin Mobile have just introduced into Australia a package they call “Broadband @ Home”.  $60/month, no connection fee, home phone, and a half decent broadband connection.  The twist with Virgin Broadband is that it doesn’t use the normal phone network like Telstra, instead it uses the same technology as your mobile phone.  No wires!

I called up and enquired… signup over the phone was simple.  A few details later the friendly guy at the other end said that he was posting it out.  How easy was that!

Less than 48 hours later I had…

1) a home phone connection
2) broadband access to the internet
3) no expensive connection fee
4) no 2 week wait!

Virgin have absolutely nailed this one.  Great product, great price, easy to use and simple to set up (all I had to do was plug in the power, plug in my phone, and turn the thing on.  I was up and running in 45 seconds!).

Telstra… be warned… its time stop focusing on copper.  You need to offer an alternative like Virgin have - they are really changing the telecommunications game here in Australia.  In terms of Customer Lifetime Value, consider me gone (and I’m only 24, imagine how much money you could have got from me over my lifetime if you actually cared, innovated, and had good offerings).

If you are considering changing telephone providers in Australia, or are looking to get a new telephone connection, I encourage you to at least check out Virgin Broadband.  They might not be for everyone, but they offer a substantial alternative to the incumbents.

Virgin 1, Telstra 0