Sunday, August 01, 2004
Cybersurf: Transcript of interview with Winston Smith
Cybersurf is a weekly web site review program broadcast on SAfm every Monday morning. This is a transcript of an interview with Winston Smith, spokesperson of Sentech. The interview is a response to several consumer complaints about the MyWireless product of Sentech.
We asked Winston Smith for his response to the complaints:
Winston Smith:The complaints that we received were clearly often justified. We've had numerous complaints about it. We've looked carefully at each and every complaint identified what they are about, looked at those that were specific to the, let's call it the speed issue, which was number one in terms of the complaints from our customer base And largely what we decided was we're going to identify the problem and also look at how we can resolve that. We've done that in effect . We've put in place a project plan as a four week timeline. It ended towards the end of August, and that timeline, a number of things have been identified.
One we've looked at how we're going to improve the speed or perception of speed to the end user and we implementing a new software bandwidth management tool that will allow us to properly and more effectively and most importantly - fairly share the bandwidth across the user base so that the users will get an equitable share of their bandwidth which is clearly not the case before.We were having many users experiencing sometimes, more than the package actually allowed and at the same time other users experiencing very slow speeds consistently. So that was a problem we've identified, as I say put a plan in place to correct that as well.
QUESTION:You said that by the end of August things should be more or less resolved - at that point, what can you user expect.
Winston Smith: The expectation of the user should be that I need to have an acceptable service. The quality or speed is directly related to the perception of how fast my download is, how fast my browsing access is or my e-mail is and quite clearly we've had many users that are very happy with the service that is at the moment - so we've taken that perception of service we've done our own testing clearly we are busy still testing with the new bandwidth management software to identify what is the measurement that will give me a happy feeling as a customer and a feeling of - yes! Sentech is delivering a service that I expected and required.
It is a shared bandwidth platform that means the bandwidth is shared across the user base. We cannot at today's high bandwidth cost provide a dedicated connection for every single user, and unfortunately that's not possible today.However, what we'd like to do is provide a service that will give the user a feeling that the competitiveness if the MyWireless product, that Sentech is offering is better than that of my fellow competitors in the market.
Q: I notice that you are very careful not to be tied down to a number – you promised equitable service but does this mean that you're going to consistently keep expanding your customer base and not increase the bandwidth base?
Winston Smith: Definitely not. Steven - the bandwidth is very much a dynamic factor it is attributed directly and related directly to the number of users on the network at any one time as well as the number of users that are signing up. When we apply the bandwidth to the product, we look at both the local bandwidth which allows us to surf in the 'za' domain space and the international bandwidth which allows you to get access to sites sitting out the country.
We look at that bandwidth, we look at the number of users we look at the ‘package’ pertaining to the users and we apply the bandwidth accordingly we then regularly update that bandwidth to meet the requirement or the growth of the user base.So that is on the bandwidth side, however, the bandwidth that we have right now, when fairly and properly and I can say properly managed to be fair to each user will be sufficient to give a good service.
Q: At what point do you know to increase the bandwidth to the user base
WS:Yes, we look at the bandwidth in a, let's call it the bandwidth in a pool of which there are users and for want of a reference, I would say the MyWireless 128 customer base we look at that bandwidth and say that based on this number this is the amount of bandwidth that I require to meet a particular service level for that customer base.When I reach, let's call it 75% of that capacity, I simply increase the bandwidth so that I am at all times able to offer the same consistent service to the user base at any time.
Q: That bandwidth that you consider a reasonable base is that equivalent to a dial-up, is that equivalent to an ISDN or to ADSL.
WS: I’d like to equate the services directly to those three products I would like to say that we equate the lowest package to at least that of a dial-up and a good dial-up hat is a any one time. So the minimum one should get is that of a dial-up connection on the lowest product and ISDN fo the middle one and comparable and better than ADSL on the upper product.
Q: Another one of the gripes with your offering has been the 24 month contract that you are required to sign. Don't you have some kind of easy opt out of it.
WS: Yes, Steven we have right now at the moment we've also added an unbundled based on the user requirement feedback hat we've got from our user base as well as prospective customers said why don't you allow me to buy the modem, albeit that its expensive at the moment we are aware of that and hen offer the product at a cheaper cost. then in terms of the service.
We've done that. We've added a twelve month option as well now so we have 24 month and 12 month option on the unbundled packages and we also. Any user is able to move out of a contract if the service they're getting is not acceptable and deemed not acceptable to them. We would not like to keep an unhappy customer simply due to a paper contract but that said however, we would be looking in the future to other methods other means of offering and perhaps you could read that the way cellular started, they way they went over time towards the prepaid model.That's probably the direction we'll be looking at in the future.
We asked Winston Smith for his response to the complaints:
Winston Smith:The complaints that we received were clearly often justified. We've had numerous complaints about it. We've looked carefully at each and every complaint identified what they are about, looked at those that were specific to the, let's call it the speed issue, which was number one in terms of the complaints from our customer base And largely what we decided was we're going to identify the problem and also look at how we can resolve that. We've done that in effect . We've put in place a project plan as a four week timeline. It ended towards the end of August, and that timeline, a number of things have been identified.
One we've looked at how we're going to improve the speed or perception of speed to the end user and we implementing a new software bandwidth management tool that will allow us to properly and more effectively and most importantly - fairly share the bandwidth across the user base so that the users will get an equitable share of their bandwidth which is clearly not the case before.We were having many users experiencing sometimes, more than the package actually allowed and at the same time other users experiencing very slow speeds consistently. So that was a problem we've identified, as I say put a plan in place to correct that as well.
QUESTION:You said that by the end of August things should be more or less resolved - at that point, what can you user expect.
Winston Smith: The expectation of the user should be that I need to have an acceptable service. The quality or speed is directly related to the perception of how fast my download is, how fast my browsing access is or my e-mail is and quite clearly we've had many users that are very happy with the service that is at the moment - so we've taken that perception of service we've done our own testing clearly we are busy still testing with the new bandwidth management software to identify what is the measurement that will give me a happy feeling as a customer and a feeling of - yes! Sentech is delivering a service that I expected and required.
It is a shared bandwidth platform that means the bandwidth is shared across the user base. We cannot at today's high bandwidth cost provide a dedicated connection for every single user, and unfortunately that's not possible today.However, what we'd like to do is provide a service that will give the user a feeling that the competitiveness if the MyWireless product, that Sentech is offering is better than that of my fellow competitors in the market.
Q: I notice that you are very careful not to be tied down to a number – you promised equitable service but does this mean that you're going to consistently keep expanding your customer base and not increase the bandwidth base?
Winston Smith: Definitely not. Steven - the bandwidth is very much a dynamic factor it is attributed directly and related directly to the number of users on the network at any one time as well as the number of users that are signing up. When we apply the bandwidth to the product, we look at both the local bandwidth which allows us to surf in the 'za' domain space and the international bandwidth which allows you to get access to sites sitting out the country.
We look at that bandwidth, we look at the number of users we look at the ‘package’ pertaining to the users and we apply the bandwidth accordingly we then regularly update that bandwidth to meet the requirement or the growth of the user base.So that is on the bandwidth side, however, the bandwidth that we have right now, when fairly and properly and I can say properly managed to be fair to each user will be sufficient to give a good service.
Q: At what point do you know to increase the bandwidth to the user base
WS:Yes, we look at the bandwidth in a, let's call it the bandwidth in a pool of which there are users and for want of a reference, I would say the MyWireless 128 customer base we look at that bandwidth and say that based on this number this is the amount of bandwidth that I require to meet a particular service level for that customer base.When I reach, let's call it 75% of that capacity, I simply increase the bandwidth so that I am at all times able to offer the same consistent service to the user base at any time.
Q: That bandwidth that you consider a reasonable base is that equivalent to a dial-up, is that equivalent to an ISDN or to ADSL.
WS: I’d like to equate the services directly to those three products I would like to say that we equate the lowest package to at least that of a dial-up and a good dial-up hat is a any one time. So the minimum one should get is that of a dial-up connection on the lowest product and ISDN fo the middle one and comparable and better than ADSL on the upper product.
Q: Another one of the gripes with your offering has been the 24 month contract that you are required to sign. Don't you have some kind of easy opt out of it.
WS: Yes, Steven we have right now at the moment we've also added an unbundled based on the user requirement feedback hat we've got from our user base as well as prospective customers said why don't you allow me to buy the modem, albeit that its expensive at the moment we are aware of that and hen offer the product at a cheaper cost. then in terms of the service.
We've done that. We've added a twelve month option as well now so we have 24 month and 12 month option on the unbundled packages and we also. Any user is able to move out of a contract if the service they're getting is not acceptable and deemed not acceptable to them. We would not like to keep an unhappy customer simply due to a paper contract but that said however, we would be looking in the future to other methods other means of offering and perhaps you could read that the way cellular started, they way they went over time towards the prepaid model.That's probably the direction we'll be looking at in the future.
