The Joke of Advertising : Telstra Vs Optus

The clash of the titans. Or is it? The two nation's biggest telco go head to head harder than ever before.

Testra are partially own by Australia's goverment, like Malaysia Telekom, are facing pesky resistance from Optus, Australia second largest Telco backed by the kiasu Singaporeans, Singtel. Telstra owns majority, rephrase - almost the entire physical infrastructure of Australia telephone network. On the other hand Optus uses its own network and also enjoying some bulk of Telstra wholesale. Optus and many other telcos regularly complain that Telstra bullied their way into market dominance by imposing higher wholesale price and less that prompt line service if the market chose its competitor.

Newspaper is becoming an arena of cat fights between these two. A full page my-Dad-is-better-than-your -Dad ads were funny at first, then swiftly becoming excruciatingly annoying. It is becoming a joke. Telstra instill-the-fear tactic, using "it is Aussie own, so indirectly it secures money and jobs within the country" tactic. Optus felt the pinch and launched a scathing assault on price comparison in phone, broadband and mobile phone products. Full page. We are talking a lot of advertising money are being spent. Are they well spent? Of course it is, when there is only one big contender in billion of dollars worth of market, 5% increase of market share would land Singapore another submarine. And most Aussie bought the marketing message. Research shows that Optus gaining signups on mobile phone and home phone contracts on each ad campaign.

But a lot of Aussie do not know that there are more companies than just Optus or Telstra. All of them are far far cheaper.

Broadband
TPG and Internode provide ADSL2+ for less than what Optus or Telstra are offering. In fact, the terms "broadband Fast internet" should be regulated by the ministry of telecommunication. Optus & telstra both claim their "broadband internet" are "fast" and threw in a free modem. A lot of not so savvy internet user, would go WOOOWW! and lured to a 24 months contracts. For "very" fast internet from
1) Optus (20Mbps is fastest with 15GB of usage allocation) is $59.99,
2)Telstra Bigpond ( up to 10Mbps with 12Gig) is $89.95,
3) Tpg (up to 24Mbps with 50Gig) $59.95 and
4) Internode (up to 24Mbps with 20Gig) is $59.95

See the difference? I think I know which one you will chose. If you need more help and variety go here

Home Phone Bundle
Optus and Telstra love to bundle products together and tie the consumer in with slaving contracts. If you agree to take up the offer of having the broadband and home phone together the phone bill will be cheaper. But cheaper compares to who? To itself. Consumers don't realise that there are abundant of VOIP in the market which should make normal home phone obsolete. Try Engin for a change where international calls are as cheap as the National call - untimed!! So who needs the home phone?

For all you Telcos out there. Gesh!! Wake up! Grow some balls and start spending on ads! Now is the right time to come up with smart and clever ads of your own. And with smart and clever ads, you don't need to spend big bucks like what goofheads in Optus and Telstra did. Educate the consumer and you will surf the wave of prosperity. How good is that?