Uncapped Bolt-On limted to 10Mbs. (seems pretty huge, yet the change was undisclosed)
Fat-Pipe promotion "contract" agreement changing from 12-months to indefinate (this one was a positive for the client but still not communicated)
and now the issue I highlighted about roll-over terms changing.
Now while I can see these changes warranted, the fact that NO NOTICE OF CHANGE, AT ALL was sent out to clients. You can defend them all you want but that is just bad practise. You CANNOT simply change terms that a client agreed to on signup whenever you feel like it without letting them know. While cvanwie seems to be a great guy and this is more than likely a decision that management made (Chris, you're just in DevOps or do you have some influence in this?) Vox has a repuation for lack of communication, and it's extremely dissapointing that an ISP that seems to want to deliver on their promises, change their promises mid-run, without announcing it.
To clarify; Vox may change whetever they want, they can even change the terms of service to sniff all my data (which is illegal) and I'll still use them as an ISP, on the basis they let me know. What the change is doesn't matter, the manner in which you execute the change does.
This is all from me, my question was answered (thanks again Chris and sand_man!)
Cheers.
All very valid points. As a company, our marketing to our customers is done on our website. It is a central place to have information for easy reference. MyBroadband is a wonderful platform which enables us to interact closer with our customers, it's very easy for information and misinformation to fester unless you go through hundreds of forum pages to find something, whereas on our website, its a click and the information is outlined.
During the sign up for products, there are T&Cs, and in them, there are references to Fair Use Policies, Access Use Policies, and a statement which allows us (the network operator) to ensure that all customers are able to enjoy their service as much as possible and we are able to change the network as we see fit for the masses. Our highest goal is to provide the best over all network and have each and every one of you, your friends, their friends, and families sharing and enjoying network together.
While we took a huge risk by introducing a 6pm to 6am time slot, and in doing so, there was an unexpected impact on the network at that time by the VDSL customers. The timing was incredible! We didn't have a lot of VDSL (20mbps & 40mbps) up until that Bolt On was released, it was like an awesome case of bitter sweet.
After a lot of analysis, we (team of people) determined that the remedy was to limit the product down to 10mbps. In doing so, we upset some people, and understandable; but we have an entire network to consider. There were some clever people who realized that they could buy multiple G4G+BOLTON packages and bond the line speed on their network while paying such a small amount and get so much. These people are the minority and it was an expected use case.
Now to talk about the Fatpipe ceiling of carry over... Touchy subject and excuse me for treading lightly here.
Carry over was something we chose to do, to differentiate a bit in the market. In doing so we opened the door for "sticky" product, I mean who would want to leave TB's of data behind when deciding to move to another provider? No one I know. Then business wanted to introduce a ceiling of 6x the amount of provisioned quota. While the information about this is in the market, the code has not been implemented yet. We know precisely how many customers would be affected and in what amounts of bandwidth that they would lose. There are many aspects which we are contemplating about when and how to implement such a ceiling. There has been talks of email campaigns, SMS, vouchers for lost data, special cases, etc... None of which has been finalized and which is why no such communication has occurred.
My role in the company is Solutions Architect and in my role there are a few things which happen. Firstly I build what business needs and wants in a way which makes sense for all involved. I'm also a customer and share my opinion about things which I don't agree with and point out shortfalls. Sometimes it helps, other times it doesn't; part real life right? Everyone has a boss.
I hope this is extremely clear, if there's anything I missed ... please let me know.
Regards,
Chris
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Chris Van Wie
Solution Architect
Vox Telecom Limited
