1. Checking through their 2012 financial report [http://www.eftel.com/data/76/eftel_ar2012_screen.pdf], it appears VOIP was their only service area to go backwards, against healthy gains in broadband and mobile. In this respect, the Engin purchase plugs a skills gap, along with a bundle of loyal customers, and gets them back into the VOIP game.

2. NBN. A substantial part of Eftel’s revenue comes from wholesale broadband – as the NBN rolls out, I expect some wholesale customers to cut out the middle man and go straight to NBN Co. Probably only bigger customers or focussed local providers (because of the 121 POI cost), but these are the customers that will hurt the most. Expanding their VOIP services gives an extra selling point, and if nothing else, may help to keep wholesale customers with the convenience of an all-in-one provider.

VoIP is a low margin business and I’m not sure if it’s worth paying 9 million dollars for 85000 customers, many of whom may not be active users. Then again, if Labor is successful at the next election and the NBN continues to roll out in its present form (fibre to the home), VoIP will gradually replace PSTN so it will become big business. VoIP users will also be able to enjoy HD telephony (G722 codec) that is not available over PSTN. Regarding voice quality, these days, providing you have a reasonably fast connection with a quality ISP (we use Internode), call quality is every bit as good as PSTN, especially when calling Australian numbers. I have been using VoIP exclusively for outgoing calls since 2005.

i personally think its not been considered let alone costed in the “fuly costed” policy Malcolm allegedly has waiting in the wings. if he really wants to show his strength in the folio, answer the bloody questions aready.

I have never had a problem with jitter, latency or drop outs (unlike my Vodafone mobile service…) although I have always been with ‘premium’ ISPs (iiNet, Telstra) rather than all-you-can-eat-for-$1.99 providers.

Paul

The ATO uses VoiP now for example, and the company supplying them would list 20k customers or so just for that one contract. You wouldnt get them swapping quickly, and if they did it would be for 100% of the staff. On top of that, you know a large Govt department like that wouldnt be going through an ISP, but a dedicated VoiP supplier. Like Engin was/is.

Having said all that, its a surprise to me as well that they have 85k still. But not necessarily a big surprise.

Many ISPs will even strip your QoS tags out for no extra cost… :o)

1) That Engin has 85,000 customers.

2) That Eftel would think it worth $9 million to buy. Why not just set up its own VoIP service… 85,000 customers is a lot of customers, but is the revenue return worth the outlay? I guess their accountants think they are.

In FTTN land, it’s more complicated, because you have to offload it from the fibre at the local node, and modulate it onto the copper to work with your existing phone(s). Certainly doable, but you add a point of latency, more complicated electronics, and more points of failure.