Darn it, I knew it was too good to be true. My friendly ISP sent me an e-mail a few weeks ago stating that the 8Mbps DSL plan I was on is no longer economically viable and will cease at the end of the month. A copy of the e-mail message follows…
Dear: MR RODNEY GEDDA
Exetel regret to advise you that the ADSL plan that you are currently on has been withdrawn by Exetel. The reason for withdrawing your plan is because it is no longer profitable to Exetel due to the increase in costs imposed on Exetel by its wholesale providers. Exetel has absorbed the cost increases it has been subject to for the past 9 months but the latest increases have pushed all of our current plans in to either a marginal profit or an outright loss situation.
In increasing ADSL pricing we have maintained the pricing basis we have used since we first offered ADSL services in January 2004 – we only mark up on our cost prices to deliver the lowest overall profit to the company that is required to stay in business. Even with these price increases the charges for all of Exetel’s ADSL1 and ADSL2 plans are the lowest offered by any ISP of any reasonable size in the Australian market place.
The notice for the withdrawal of your current plan is given under the terms of your contract, specifically clause 5.1:
5.1 After the initial contract period ends Exetel may terminate, or vary, this Agreement at any time by giving the Customer twenty one days written notice of its intention to do so. Written notice will be via an email to the email address nominated by the customer on their application or as subsequently varied by the customer using the function provided for this purpose in the Exetel User Facilities.
Exetel is giving you the required 21 days notice that this plan will not be available after midnight on 31st July 2007.
CURRENT PLAN: T 10U – 8192/384 – 65.00 – 12000 (MB)
The new plan pricing can be found on the Exetel web site, on the Exetel User Facilities, or below;
T1 – X02
T2 – X03
T3 – XX3
T4 – X05
T5 – X06
T6 – XX6
T7 – X08
T8 – X09
T9 – XX9
T10 – X11
T11 – X12
T12 – XX12The new plan pricing can be found on the Exetel web site or on the Exetel User Facilities.
The options available to you are:
1) Use the ‘change plan’ function in the Exetel User Facilities to select another Exetel plan before midnight on 31st July 2007.
2) Transfer your ADSL service to another provider before midnight on 31st July 2007.
If you have not chosen either of these options Exetel will automatically move you to the closest plan currently available from August 1st 2007.
Exetel understands that any change to a service, particularly a price increase, will not be well regarded by any customer and we regret the necessity of doing so in this instance but, like any commercial organization, we must meet any changes in the marketplaces in which we operate with actions that allow us to continue to offer the services and the performance all of our customers expect and are entitled to. If we didn’t increase our ADSL1 prices we would not still be in business by the December of this year.
We do understand that this situation may cause you to choose to move away from Exetel to another ADSL provider and we will be sorry to lose you as a customer should you elect to do that and thank you for using our services and we wish you every success with your new provider.
Regards
Exetel Provisioning
——————————————————————–
Please note: you can not reply to this email.
That last line makes me feel so much better. So, not wanting to leave Exetel, which has so far been good to me, I elected to upgrade my plan to one of its ADSL2+ offerings, which my modem should support (I hope). BTW, there is no “change plan function” but a “change my service” option in the user admin console and NONE of the plans mentioned in the e-mail are there at all. I chose an ADSL2+ plan that had a different numbering scheme altogether.
So I went ahead and agreed to pay the $88.00 to move to a Powertel ADSL2+ service and avoided the early termination fee because my existing contract ends before the end of the month. According to Exetel…
Your current service will be cancelled on the next working day after your requested cancellation date
Your current service will continue to be available before your requested cancellation date.
Your new ADSL2 service will be ordered on the next working day after the ADSL1 service has been cancelled.
Your new service normally will be available 7 days after we send the order to Powertel.
We’ll see, oh, we’ll see…
