Telstra doesn't get it

According to BRW magazine, Telstra reported a decline in half-year earnings due to 10 % of homes no longer having a landline, 66% having broadband, and replacement of phone calls with social networking, email and other web-based comms. Plus Sensis (Yellow Pages) is performing poorly.

Well durr...

Thing is, that most of us were rusted on Telstra customers, and changing away from that is something that takes a lot of effort. So things must be pretty serious for us to be driven to make that change. Like?

Like ongoing pathetic service from Telstra - in their shopfronts, on their support lines and through their convoluted websites. Not always, but enough times to more than outweigh the occasional instance of good service.

Like refusal to provide naked ADSL services. After all, Telstra led the drive to push us all away from landlines towards mobile, something we embraced as mobile deals become more attractive and competitive with landline and STD calls. They just didn't expect that it would also be towards VoIP, so now they are backtracking. But their refusal is equivalent to the refusal of newspapers to jump aboard the net. (Rupert are you listening? No I thought not.)

Like their continuing high internet ISP pricing and low download limits. Makes sure that we realise it's more affordable to get an ISP-independent email and abandon our years-old Bigpond emails, so we are then free to bugger off to whatever ISP has the best deal/service.

Like their pathetic provision of broadband infrastructure in key metro areas like here - just 10kms from Parliament House - that prevents us getting ADSL2 or 2+. Why? Because if they upgraded things so their own customers get better net access, they'd also have to share the upgraded facilities with other ISPs. But what is the net effect of that? We bugger off to the competition anyway, just because we are so cheesed off with Telstra.

So David Thodey and Telstra: if you think a 20 cent fall in your share price on the back of your reporting was the end of it, think again. Unless you have an epiphany, you ain't see nothing yet.