Price Increase Of $5.00 per Month On All Old ADSL Plans

[ForumAdmin]

The following email will be sent to customers who are out of contract on old plans (ie plans not on the current web site) by COB today.

If you have any suggested changes then please suggest them.

Increase Of $5.00 Per Month In Your Current Plan Charge

Dear [ ],

As a long term Exetel customer who has stayed with us beyond the end date of your initial contract we are grateful to you for your support of Exetel and therefore we hope you understand that we wouldn’t be increasing the price of your current plan if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. As you probably know your plan has not been offered by Exetel for some considerable time now and its particular characteristics and the ‘average ‘ users monthly usage mean that Exetel lose money on providing you with this particular service each month.

We have been quite prepared to do this over the past three years by leaving any plan we offered in place as we introduced new plans to meet the actualities of our buy price and operating cost changes but we now find ourselves in the position where we are providing almost 50,000 customers with services that cost us more than the user pays for them. We hope you appreciate that losing money on providing a service to such a large percentage of our ADSL customers is something that is very dangerous for us to do.

This email is to advise you that your current plan will increase by $5.00 from 12.00 am on 1st April 2010 (and no this is not an April Fool’s day “joke”) if you decide you want to stay with Exetel as your ISP and you want to stay on your current plan.

Alternatively, you might like to go to the Exetel User Facilities “Change My Service” option:

https://www.exetel.com.au/members/chang ... e_plan.php

and see if there is a current plan that might better suit your needs.

If you believe that another ISP may be able to offer you a more suitable plan than Exetel can then we completely understand that you may decide to leave us after being with us for so long and we will be very sorry to see you go. However we hope you understand that we have been losing money providing you with an ADSL service for quite some time now and if we were continue to do so we simply will not remain in business.

Whatever decision you now make we, and the endangered Australian animals, birds and flowers your monthly payments help save from extinction, would like to thank you for being an Exetel customer and helping us continue to grow towards becoming the best, and lowest cost, ISP in Australia and hope that you do decide to stay with us to complete that ‘mission’.

Annette Linton, Steve Waddington and John Linton

[Lukian]

The change plan link seems to be broken.
Topic should be edited to ADSL if it doesn't apply to old HSPA plans.

"if you decide you want to stay with Exetel as your ISP and you want to stay on your current plan."
This portion of the sentence is probably unnecessary as it's summarised nicely in the closing and seems a little terse at it's current point in the email.

'No this is not an April Fool’s day “joke”' gave me a good chuckle.
Perhaps more information on what caused plans with acceptable prices 3 years ago - particular with the fall in IP cost over that period - would be of use to the community, even if it's in the forum, rather than the email.

[jokiin]

The change plan link seems to be broken.

should be fixed now, thanks for pointing it out

[Ravenous]

It may be prudent to repeat sending this email at least once a week for the rest of the month? Flag message as 'high' importance?

Is this going to be invoiced similar to the old $3 'admin' fee?

[ForumAdmin]

It may be prudent to repeat sending this email at least once a week for the rest of the month? Flag message as 'high' importance?

Is this going to be invoiced similar to the old $3 'admin' fee?

Good idea - we will send it three times - the problem will.e that some customer's email addresses will not be valid.

It will be invoiced as an increased plan charge - not a separate amount.

[ForumAdmin]

The change plan link seems to be broken.
Topic should be edited to ADSL if it doesn't apply to old HSPA plans.

"if you decide you want to stay with Exetel as your ISP and you want to stay on your current plan."
This portion of the sentence is probably unnecessary as it's summarised nicely in the closing and seems a little terse at it's current point in the email.

'No this is not an April Fool’s day “joke”' gave me a good chuckle.
Perhaps more information on what caused plans with acceptable prices 3 years ago - particular with the fall in IP cost over that period - would be of use to the community, even if it's in the forum, rather than the email.

It was decided not to include more information as it blurs the 'message'.

The email is being sent to a particular ADSL service user so is it really necessary to mention HSPA?

[vbap]

The email is being sent to a particular ADSL service user so is it really necessary to mention HSPA?

Maybe Lukian mean in the title of the email (title of this topic in fact). "$5.00 per month increase on all old plans" - if it is targeted at a particular existing plan, why not title the message "$5.00 per month increase for customers still on XYZPLAN"

EDIT: changed "users" to "customers" -> marketing 101.

[Lukian]

The email is being sent to a particular ADSL service user so is it really necessary to mention HSPA?

No - Do not mention HSPA. But *do* mention ADSL. ie. "Price increase of $5 per month on all old ADSL plans"
Users may have multiple Exetel services and some may have "old plan" HSPA services.

[PM]

Unfortunately this change is going to disadvantage those of us who don't have access to ADSL2.
I'm currently on an old 8192 plan which is 12GB/54GB for $68 per month. This will now increase to $73 per month.

My only option if I wish to stay with Exetel (and I do... maybe?) is to move to the only 8192 plan on offer, the NF8192 which is 6GB/12GB.

I'd rather not move back to Netspace here in Hobart. But they do offer ADSL2, at a good rate. I see I'm all out of options. I would be happy if new 8192 plan was on offer retaining at least 12GB peak and something appropriate for off peak, even if it were reduced to 15-20GB off peak. A someone who has never contacted Exetel support, I would have thought I would be a preferred customer etc?

Not all that happy!

[Spectator]

I'm under contract on the $40 5GB naked plan introduced late last year. At that time exetel were cheaper than the more well known providers of naked DSL at that low usage level but now with the $5 increase to $45 for new users and presumably me when off contract, exetel is about the same when you take into account adding in VOIP from exetel or someone else (as some of the other providers include this). When you consider some of the other extras offered by those companies (and I know exetel offers a huge off-peak data allocation but for me that is excessive and not used) Exetel is no longer such an easy choice for people wanting to take up naked ADSL at a low price point.

I'm surprised that:
a) these plans were found to be unprofitable so quickly;
b) the same $ increase applies to all plans regardless of base cost

Assuming everything stays the same, I won't be changing providers when off contract but if I was starting again I would probably come to a different decision which is a shame. The fact that Exetel has historically allowed people to stay on old plans was a factor in me selecting exetel (although I appreciate you can't be expected to run at a loss).

I expect the frequency of plan changes at exetel is probably a bit offputting to some as well.

[ForumAdmin]

Unfortunately this change is going to disadvantage those of us who don't have access to ADSL2.
I'm currently on an old 8192 plan which is 12GB/54GB for $68 per month. This will now increase to $73 per month.

My only option if I wish to stay with Exetel (and I do... maybe?) is to move to the only 8192 plan on offer, the NF8192 which is 6GB/12GB.

I'd rather not move back to Netspace here in Hobart. But they do offer ADSL2, at a good rate. I see I'm all out of options. I would be happy if new 8192 plan was on offer retaining at least 12GB peak and something appropriate for off peak, even if it were reduced to 15-20GB off peak. A someone who has never contacted Exetel support, I would have thought I would be a preferred customer etc?

Not all that happy!

If you downloaded 12 gb peak on the current 8192/384 plan the cost would be slightly lower than you pay today.

[vbap]

I'm surprised that:
a) these plans were found to be unprofitable so quickly;
b) the same $ increase applies to all plans regardless of base cost

This is why I think the title needs to be changed - or clarified at least - exactly what is meant by "all old ADSL plans? I know the letter will only be sent to those it impacts, but by posting it here, it will cause all sorts of perhaps unnecessary hysteria and noise.

I have to agree though, that at the low end of the scale (where my usage is also), the Exetel naked ADSL2+ w/VoIP offerings are not as clear cut as they once were, but are still the best option for me right now.

[ForumAdmin]

I expect the frequency of plan changes at exetel is probably a bit offputting to some as well.

But, in this case you would need to bear in mind that some users are on plans that have been the same for over 42 months.

[ForumAdmin]

I'm surprised that:
a) these plans were found to be unprofitable so quickly;
b) the same $ increase applies to all plans regardless of base cost
.

When Exetel sets a plan price it does so on the basis of the then current costs for the port, the connection from the customer (as an average), the amount of downloads anticipated (as an average) and a small cost for overhead. This works well when Exetel 'forces' users of old plans to move to any new plan introduced once the initial contract period expires which we did for the first three years of our existence. For all sorts of valid reasons at the time we stopped doing that some 3+ years ago and some current users have been on an 'old plan' for almost four years.

Exetel always set plan prices to yield a profit of between $2 and $1 which was sensible for the period when any error in assumption was corrected by customers moving to new plans as they were released.

What has now happened, since we ceased that policy, is that the ongoing in operating costs (IP, overheads) have been more than (negatively) off set by the increasingly rapid growth of download usage by the 'average' customer on any particular plan.

The rapid acceptance of on line video sites such as UTube over the past three years has seen the average usage across all old plans double since the original assumptions were made resulting in almost all old plans costing Exetel more than we receive in month fees.

Plan costs no longer reduce as time goes by as in the 'good old days' because customer usage continues to grow.

Sometimes, as in recently, we get something very wrong in the assumptions we use in setting the plan.

[ant333]

So, i'm a little confused here.

I'm currently on a ADSL1 Plan that is $55 per month, and gives me 30GB download Peak.

I had a look at the new plans, and there is one that is $55 per month, that gives 36GB Download Peak.

So, if i stay on my plan, it goes up to $60 per month for 30GB peak, or i can move over to a $55 per month for 36GB Peak download?

or do the NEW plans currently on offer go up $5 as well?

You really need to clarify this further.