The Sublime Network
Filed under: business, cloud computing, corporate, customers, David Thodey, innovation, internet, networks, Telstra CEO
Marshall McLuhan once wrote that “the medium is the message.”
But what if the medium is not one form of electronic communication, but many?
It means the message is convergence – convergence of technologies, and convergence of behaviour.
New advances, trends and products are enabling us to:
- Change the way we live – Australians now send more than 500 million emails a day and 50 million SMS messages a day … that’s 2.5 SMSs and 25 emails per person per day,
- Change the way we work – Australia’s largest private company, Visy, has shifted all of its server operations into Telstra cloud computing … and saved 30% on IT costs,
- And change the way we communicate – in two months YouTube uploads more video than America’s three major TV networks have broadcast since 1948.
What does this convergence tell us? What does this change mean?
In the media it means the mass-broadcast model is being enhanced by – and ultimately will be replaced by – the individual on-demand model.
The media is on the verge of what economist Kenneth Boulding called a ‘break boundary’.
To adapt to change of this magnitude requires two things: leadership, and innovation – and I don’t mean individual leadership or technical innovation. If anything I’m talking about the opposite.
I’m talking about technical leadership and individual innovation – and the connection between the two.
Telstra has always been a technical leader, as Next G and Next IP demonstrate, but now – through initiatives like our External R&D Program – we’re wanting to leverage our technical leadership to enable individual innovation.
That’s why we believe networks need to be larger, faster, more reliable, more flexible and more secure to keep up with the demands of smart devices and the phenomenal growth in the mobile Internet and video on demand.
People don’t want to know about whether they are on a wired or wireless network.
They just want the network to follow them – and they want the network to work.
Think of it like the process of sublimation – when matter converts from solid to gas – or ice to steam. The advent of the mobile Internet is, in effect, sublimating data – be it emails or video or music or transactions.
Information should not be locked in one device or network.
It should not be as solid as ice. Instead, it should be as mobile as steam.
Our information should be able to go anywhere we want.
What we’re working towards, in other words, is the creation of a Sublime Network.
That’s the kind of technical leadership that will give Australians the freedom they need to be as innovative as they can.
Where would you like to see the future technological advances take us?
The World is small little ball in the Universe & in the Internet World moving to digital voice & video is only the beginning.
For Telstra to compete in the Internet World & in the future of Telecommunication; it will need to develop new & better advance protocols & take control of the high “analog-to-digital” speed.
To have this lead, it will need to innovate & be in the fore-front of the electronic “race”. Telstra will need that “Chip” !with high digital speed that it can use &will be used by companies & develop solutions like IP-Tel, data, digital Video etc.,
A fast chip with architecture that convert “analog-to-digital”
that produce high digital speed. The one I have in mind is based on “parallel multi-layer” analog-digital feed technology.
Some research is required. Question is, Is Telstra ready & willing to invest in this innovation. Chip manufacturer may need to sign contract to participate and to protect Telstra’s design & investment; future Licencing of other companies like Cisco, 3Com, Internet carriers using the CPU/Integrated Cct -
David we would all have a different perspective to your question according to our individual positioning of wants and needs.
For myself I would greatly appreciate the visuals on my mobile phone to appear far larger that they presently are with the current screen size.
I am not asking for a physically larger mobile but a visual projection from my mobile that appears to me as a far larger format screen.
I know that is a big ask and would require a big technological advance but to have the advantage of the present small mobile screen enlarged would be a giant step forward.
David,
I agree with your view here, but if we want Telstra to offer easy access to many information via mobile, then it’s best to seek customer opinions and gather the data and then apply the technical knowhow into mobile and internet. What is Free Information for consumers??
Very interesting developments in the United States overnight where Sprint Nextel had a big surge in its share price because of the expected popularity of its new worlds first 3C/4G Android Phone HTC EVOTM 4G.
i think its about time telstra should be making there wireless network quicker with all the new customers going wireless the network is getting slower and lots more outages
No good talking about the future, David, when Telstra can’t get its customer service right now. Ten weeks without broadband, being put on hold, cut off, talking with dozens of consultants, being promised things will be fixed (never are), being told four different causes for the issue, bought new modems (2), new cabling and splitters
And not one consultant ever called me back over the ten weeks – not ONE. I have spent hours and hours chasing Telstra and yet I am YOUR customer.
The future isn’t just about the technology, it’s about doing doing the right thing by your customers today so the organisation has a future tomorrow. So far – BIG FAIL
http://exchange.telstra.com.au/2010/03/23/the-sublime-network/comment-page-1/#comment-3618
Hi Phil, I understand customer support have recently been in contact with you and a technician sent out to fix up the issue. I’m pleased to hear you are happy with the resolution.
Cheers,
Brendan
Hi David,
I am a long-standing customer of Telstra living in Wollongong, yet my suburb only has ADSL 1 and I can’t afford to pay extra for additional ways to access the net. You talk about customers and convergence of technology, yet I have limited choice.
Why won’t you ‘converge’ my account, one where you don’t change me for access to each medium, but the communication/information I require? I envisage from your vision a future where I have a single account, one that allows me to seamlessly use wireless access points around city centers, roam around with 3g, and then use my home ADSL. Why should I pay for each access type? From Telstra’s perspective, if I use my allowance, it should not matter how, when or where.
You say networks need to be larger, faster, more reliable, more flexible. Go on, make it happen, ditch the discrete access mentality – convert my $69 account i’m currently paying a month for 12gb/1500 mbps into a more flexible ‘convergence account’ that doesn’t cost me any more. What an innovator and market leader Telstra will be… Lead the way!
David – to succeed for customers and for shareholders – you need to address service.
Devices/networks/innovation aside – the old maxim survives – empower your front-line to make customer focussed decisions.
Telstra service continues to be nothing short of appalling on every level.
Regards,
Doug
(a disappointed Telstra shareholder)
David
I think the science-based metaphor is very apt….
Pervasive, converged networks will enable the smart applications that will reduce our relliance on fossil fuel eg high definition video conferencing, personalised public transport solutions, smart grids and intelligent buildings. All these applications will leverage our industry’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The support of R&D is critical – I look forward to see this continue to grow and expand into climate change solutions
Cheers,
Turlough
Doug says:
27 Mar 2010 at 2:21 pm
True, as a tech of over 20 years experience, most of the staff in tech land are afraid to speak out!And this silence is killing telstra.
Also if NBN takes off I suspect telstra will start to hemorrhage staff, particularly techs, lines people, engineers, IT and other tech staff.
The pay and conditions at telstra are good, but the level of frustration at times for staff and customers is quit high.
A little bird tells me NBN CO might rename itself to telecom!
http://exchange.telstra.com.au/2010/03/23/the-sublime-network/comment-page-1/#comment-3650
Doug
Thanks for your comments. I agree – for our business to succeed and win in the market we need to provide great customer service.
Our front line staff are critical. In order to harness their customer insights and knowledge, we now have several forums which encourage their open and honest feedback about service. We are also learning from extensive root cause analysis and customer surveys. And we are acting on this information. We are putting a lot of energy and resources into improving our customer service based on this data … because we want to provide the best service in the business.
The program is being driven by Robert Nason, who I have appointed to head up a new division focused on improving customer satisfaction and service.
While we have a long way to go, I am encouraged by what we have achieved so far and we will have more to say about this very soon.
Our customers will be the ultimate judges of our progress and success on customer service but I am determined to make a difference.
All the best,
David
Dear David,
it was suggested to me by one of the more helpful staff in the complaints department to drop you a line. She said that you actually read your mail and reply.
If so, I shall be very pleasantly surprised, as it has been a long time since Telstra have offered that level of customer service.
And that is what this email is about – customer service.
Some background, first: I am 51 years old. In the late 90′s I dealt with Telstra extensively, as I was a small ISP on the Gold Coast – back in the ‘good old days’ of dialup. I have also been a Bigpond Dealer here on Macleay Island.
I am no longer a Bigpond Dealer. I gave it away as a bad joke. I could not reccommend to my customers (a small island community) a service which had such poor customer service. The technical side of Broadband is excellent. It is the customer relations which have deteriorated; primarily due, I believe, to the auspices of your predecessor.
I have been with Telstra and/or Bigpond for over 15 years. That is about to end.
My main problem is customer service.
I hate, with a deep and abiding passion, you voice activated menu system. Similarly, the automated ‘voice robots’ which call my mobile phone.
I now represent another, smaller company. They answer their phones, personally. They have not outsourced everything to overseas based companies. Some examples are, Tech support, billing, credit management and marketing.
I had my neighbour call me months ago. She was told that she “had to have’ mobile broadband. She already had ADSL. The reason for this call to her? Well, the marketing department had outsourced this. So I wind up having to explain the situation to several customers that no, you don’t “have to have’ mobile broadband, you already have a better product – ADSL.
Then the same bean counters send people driving around the island, visiting (unannounced) prior Telstra/Bigpond customers and making incorrect promises if the customers come back to Bigpond.
There are a few good people in Tech support. All too few. Most simply read from a set of instructions on the screen in front of them. Investigating tech issues is complicated. It is NOT a job to be dealt with by low paid workers in third world countries, who know little or nothing about computers, the internet or security. I cannot count the number of times I have had to undo all the mistakes inflicted upon my customers by the Tech Support staff.
Seriously, if one of these clowns tells a customer to disable/uninstall firewalls and internet security software – one would think that they should have the common sense to tell the customer to start all those essential items back up again! But they don’t – because they don’t care.
Believe it or not, this is all intended to be by way of constructive criticism. These problems can be fixed. They should be fixed. If they continue, your market share will continue to fall. Customers have long, long memories.
My single biggest ‘selling point’ so to speak, is that I can tell a customer that they will never have to talk to Telstra again. The usual response is ‘sign me up’. Only later do they ask about price.
I hope this letter is taken in the way it was meant, as a ‘heads up’ about what the groundswell of opinion is with regard to your services. Slick advertising campaigns will only work for just so long. Customers yearn for and expect better from such a once prestegious company such as Telstra.
http://exchange.telstra.com.au/2010/03/23/the-sublime-network/comment-page-1/#comment-4431
Tim,
Thank you for your honest feedback about Telstra and BigPond. I do agree that our customer service needs to improve…and maybe one day we can win you back as a customer. I certainly hope that we can.
I assure you that we now have dedicated teams across the business working to address many of the issues you raise. You will know if we succeed because our customers will start to talk about the difference.
We have already made some changes to the BigPond technical support system which means that you can talk to a consultant…but I agree there is a lot more we need to address.
I have passed on your feedback to others in the business who are actively working to drive change at Telstra. They will also find your comments helpful.
Thanks again for your feedback and I am sorry that your Telstra experience has not been up to standard. We are going to change this company so watch this space!
All the best,
David
David,
From a wonderful vision you have outlined the environment has set out to shape this vision to their expectations. That’s a good sign. It means possibly another chance.
Technology per sa only excites lab rats, who have the vision of what it can do for them.
The popular ‘Top Gear’ show attracts huge following not because they hang on every word as Clarkson rattles off the technical statistics of beautiful cars. It is the human interaction, the entertainment that is the vision shared with the viewers.
I look at technology from the point of view of a car owner. On one level (givens), it is meant to get me from a to b reliably, with the right amount of comfort. But on another level (brand loyalty), it is meant to make me feel good about myself. The brand i drive shares its vision and delivers the promise.
Vision is the most important asset of a company and when it is shared with staff and customers it creates mutual understanding, common goal and loyalty. Vision is never about technology.
InnoFuture, for instance, has the vision to inspire all Australian businesses towards global competitiveness through cultural transformation that embraces innovation, with the support of industry leaders gain the opportunity to build legendary reputations for business leadership, community support and customer loyalty.
Telstra has the potential to turn around its current reputation and the negative and growing customer trend, and, at the same time help create more successful customers – by focusing on real customer (at least SME customer) needs and delivering value that helps their customers succeed.
Even taking your own example: if Telstra’s solution was able to save Visy 30% of cost, imagine what you could do for the 1.9 million small business customers, if you could connect with them on a platform of trust and providing them with real value for growth? This is not a rhetorical question. I have at least part of the solution.
Good discussion.
Dear David,
I am no longer a customer of Telstra and am perfectly happy with my new supplier of both internet and telephone. However, Telstra will not leave me alone. I now receive regular calls, usually while I am in the middle of preparing dinner, from Telstra sales people who start off by telling me that Telstra has noticed I am no longer a customer, and therefore don’t I realise I am missing out on so much. My response is that I will never return to Telstra as a customer and then I am asked to explain why…well David I don’t care to explain why, I have better things to do, and I want to be left alone. I have asked everyone of these callers to make sure I am not bothered anymore…..but it does not work. Be assured that every new call is pushing me further away from ever considering Telstra as a supplier. Do I have to make a formal complaint, or maybe I should change my telephone number? and if so, why is it my responsibility to change this situation?
Russell,
Thanks for your feedback. I hope that we can earn the right to win you back as a customer one day.
I do apologise for the unwanted calls. If you want to be taken off our telemarketing calls, you should register on the Do Not Call Register https://www.donotcall.gov.au, where you can list your contact numbers to avoid receiving unsolicited telemarketing calls and marketing faxes.
All the best,
David
Hi David,
Telstra services and Telstra Velocity is a complete failure. Once phone line is offline, internet and TV will follow suit. I have an outage to all my Telstra services on Friday evening 10 Dec and to date, nothing has been done and no one as promise ever call me back.
I have called like 9 times, weekends calls all have been diverted to Philippines?? There is even a your so call consultant asking me to dial 132 203 when I’d dialled that to call him, is this a joke? I can even name them e.g. Gayle, Shirlyn, Aurora etc. All giving me promise that someone will call me back within 24hrs and it’s almost 72hrs and no one ever call.
You don’t expect someone to be patient and not frustrated with no services for 3 days (complete data blackout and no TV especially weekend) and getting craps from so call consultants.
To me these consultants are just people trying to calm you down by not doing anything and pushing you around, making you call back again.
I can just say that Telstra customer service and technical support is a complete failure.
Hi Ivan. Please forward your account and a contact number and I’ll have someone call you asap. Brendan
Hi Brendan,
Thanks for the prompt response. I have replied to the email you’ve sent to me and don’t know if you’ve pick it up as there’s no email in there unless I missed it.
Anyway, the technician has called me – finally, however they need to come down and fix it. No promises given but they will only be there either today or by latest 16 Dec.
So you can see where I’m coming from from my previous message. From what I was told by them, first come first serve basis and I’m probably too slow to report the fault then.
By 16 Dec that’s almost a week without anything!! Thanks Telstra.
Hi Ivan. You can use the online form to contact me or exchange.telstra@team.telstra.com. let me know how you go on the 16th. i’m here if you need me. Brendan
Hi Brendan,
Apparently the technician fixed it at 10:30am this morning, haven’t got a chance to go back and take a look but phone’s definitely working now.
I have completed the form as requested previously but its more than 3 days and no one seem to be contacting me for the complaint.
I’m just wondering what Telstra will make up for the lost of all services and the inconvenience for the passed one week (almost).
Our business has been Telstra customers since before Telstra took over from Telecom. Service in recent years has seriously gone downhill. Im writing this after a long and frustrating day of trying to sort out the latest nightmare. With a land line 4 mobile phones and adsl, we were recently advised to move our broadband to a business account. We were told that our current @bigpond.net.au email address would automatically move to our new account, and our plan will become $40 per month for internet access and email. (this happened relatively smoothly) After receiving a $60 bill from bigpond today we contacted bigpond account enquires to query this charge. The operator in the Phillipines took it upon herself to cancel out email account completely. After realising her mistake she said she has fixed the problem and all is back to normal, this was not the case. after many many many long and frustrating calls to various different departments to bigpond to telstra business broadband, being redirected from calls centers in one country to the other, we are in the situation where our business has come to a standstill, right in the lead up to christmas, with no access to our email address (nor can customers send us emails). We have set up a live account to give us some access to the outside world. I have since found out that the original info given that our email and internet will be moved to business broadband for $40 dollars a month was wrong and we have to pay extra for our (now non existant thanks to telstra’s gurus overseas) email account. The current promise is 3 to 5 business days to fix a problem that was caused by a girl at a computer in seconds, this seems a ridiculous solution to us and has put us out of business to the world.
Consultation with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsmen appears to be our next step as we struggle to get anyone at Telstra to talk to us let alone offer a reasonable fix.
And as one Telstra rep we spoke to today recommended (On a personal note from her side) that we wipe our hands of Telstra’s incompetence and find another provider.
I can only agree with her.
Hello David. I hear your frustration. I can see you’ve had some unpleasant experiences with us recently and I’d like to do what I can to help. Please use the online form to send me a contact and account number and I’ll have a local CSR call you asap.
AS a long standing share holder and having recently increased my share holding , I am extremly unhappy with recent suggestions regarding the investment of excess cash into other areas rather than telecommunications. I chose Telstra and not James Packer’s company to invest my money. If I had wanted to invest in gambling I would have invested directly with Consolidated Media. As the share price has been low for many years would it not be good PR to increase the dividend, your many shareholders would be very greatful. As for my shareholding, I am only interested in Telstra if it remains a telecommuications company. I would appreciate your reply to justify the company investing in areas in which it does not have expertise thankyou
Dear Philippa,
Thank you for contacting Telstra and sharing your views. Shareholder feedback is extremely important.
At Telstra’s Investor Update last week, the CEO and CFO outlined Telstra’s capital management strategy and the core decisions that will drive our decision making in this area.
Our capital management strategy is underpinned by a clear focus on maximising returns to shareholders through both dividends and capital growth, maintaining financial strength and retaining financial flexibility. We said that our preference for returning capital to shareholders is via growth in franked dividends, although we don’t expect to have the franking capacity to increase the dividends before 2014.
We have already communicated that our intention in 2012 and 2013 is to pay a dividend of $0.28 per share – subject to the Board’s normal approval process. This remains the key priority for us as we continue to focus on maximising value to shareholders.
In regards to queries about our future investment strategy, these are best addressed by our Investor Relations team. You can contact them directly through the following email address: investor.relations @ team.telstra.com.
I hope this information helps.