Quack

A big splash for Telstra’s 6 months to Dec 2006 results. The spin doctors were at their best talking up the NextG network, now with speeds of “up to” 500 billion Gb, and trying to get the broader population of Australia on their side in the battle against the evil regulator (not that they really have an influence).

I wanted to comment on a few little details within the report that affect the service provider community. (more…)

My new friend, Michael the telemarketer, called me with the latest offer from Telstra. For just $99 per month, I get service & equipment included, plus as many (more…)

Those pricing people at Telstra continue to impress me with their cleverness when it comes to innovative and customer-friendly pricing changes … pause … NOT! (I just see Borat Movie; I like).

You just need to know a few small facts about voicemail calling patterns (more…)

The next generation of coverage, speed, services has brought us the next generation of mobile phone plans. No, the odd characters in the title are not shorthand for me swearing, but rather the mandatory footnote tags that appear in every single (mobile) phone advertisement you will see, referring you to the all important information in the footnotes. The beloved asterisk, dagger, caret, and pound symbol are essential qualifiers these days to what used to be simple words like “plan”, “fee”, “anytime”. Don’t you pine for the days when “anytime” actually meant “any time”?

The early days of mobile phone billing brought us my favourite item in the smoke-and-mirrors toolchest: 30-second billing. (more…)