It was timely, and it felt more like a relaunch of Optus packages, after a horror year last year, when a massive cyberattack on the telco caused a political storm and led calls for management to be sacked.
The Optus tech day was timed perfectly today, with the announcement minutes before the event, that archrival Telstra and TPG Telecom will not be able to share infrastructure in regional Australia and one of the main objectors who claimed it would be the making of a monopoly was Optus.
Beside the Optus chief executive at today’s event was former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian who outlined the strides she has made wooing small medium businesses and large enterprises such as Super Retail Group to the Optus telecommunication offering.
It was clear that Optus did not want to be seen as yet another telco, instead the business is being reshaped as a digital services Company right down to the revelation that there is now an O Team of custom installers that are working with the likes of Harvey Norman and Theatre At Home to install home automation and entertainment systems in homes.
You could see from the expression on Kelly Bayer Rosmarin’s face, when she took a question on the blocking of TPG’s $15 billion merger with Vodafone Hutchison Australia, that todays decision, was a big win on a very important day for Optus management, who spent the next hour rolling out new service after service including a neat new app that allows Optus customers to manage their subscriptions including services such as Netflix, Stan and Amazon Prime all in one place.
And if you cut a deal with Optus you get up to a 10% discount on your subs.
Optus is also introducing speed caps because its mobile plans aren’t making enough money, according to CEO Kelly Bayer-Rosmarin. There is even a new app that identifies towers and when using the app, you can dial up an immediate speed boost for a fee.
Bayer-Rosmarin’s claims about the profitability of mobile networks in Australia was backed up with a claim that currently “The average return on capital for telcos in this country is below our cost of capital and that is unacceptable because we want to continually invest in providing better connectivity, underpinning the digital economy for Australia for the future,” She said.
Management also talked up the future of satellites with the Company, which is one of the few organisations in Australia to deliver satellite services in Australia claiming that there is a big future for Satellites that fall under Gladys Berejiklian’s portfolio at Optus.
As for the mobile market Optus is introducing a 150Mbps speed cap for most of its prepaid plans in July, and a single $55 recharge for speeds of 250Mbps.
Its post-paid plans will continue to be uncapped, which means they can operate at the fastest speeds the network is capable of.
The CEO who is investing in a totally new look Optus claims “The reason we have speed caps is to make sure that we are actually monetising the huge investment in infrastructure that goes into building wonderful, fast 5G networks.”
“The margins we are earning here are not sufficient for us to be able to make a return on the capital we’re investing in. […] So some of those decisions really reflect how we’re trying to make sure we monetise the market and ensure that consumers understand the value of the great service we are providing.”.
