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IN Conversation with Phil Britt, MD of Aussie Broadband
Aussie Broadband co-founder and MD, Phil Britt, gave us a few minutes of his time to talk about his highly successful Internet Service Provider that has been kicking goals and winning customers from the big Telcos at an exponential rate.
The company has been dubbed the “best internet service provider” and has won multiple awards, thousands of five-star reviews and hundreds of thousands of hearts. And it’s not just the company that is receiving such colourful feedback, but the boss is also well respected having been named Runner-Up for Managing Director of the Year by CEO Magazine. Britt was recognised for being an industry disruptor and for running a straight-talking telco and no-nonsense approach.
It was refreshing to chat to Britt and gain a little insight into his company.
For those that don’t know Aussie Broadband (ASX: ABB) is an Australian owned and operated internet service provider offering NBN subscription plans and bundles to residential homes, small businesses, not-for-profits, corporate/enterprises, and managed service providers. It also deals in, a range of other telecommunications services such mobile plans, and TV subscriptions. The company has 370k subscribers and has quickly become the fifth largest NBN telco.
This week Aussie Broadband announced the launch of a new Perth office to provide more flexible customer service across Australia’s varying time zones, together with a warehouse facility. Britt says “the reason Perth was chosen is because of a time-zone difference. The daylight savings is up to 3 hours. There are some advantages to having team members on the other side and a wider talent pool is a plus.” Whilst Britt didn’t disclose any costs involved in setting up the centre, he said “it’s an interesting market in WA due to the boom and bust nature. Which means the Government is keen to offer a lot of incentives to come in and build in these areas. Compared to costs in other locations, the setup costs and ongoing costs really stacked up.”
There are no other plans at the moment to open any other centres in Sydney or Brisbane.
The network capability of Aussie Broadband is second to none. While internet providers are quick to offer up “high-speed” plans, the company shows what “a real high-speed plan looks like,” introducing the nbnâ„¢ Home Ultrafast speed tier, with potential speeds which approach 1000Mbps. Britt explains that the “NBN sells their wholesale access into parts, access and volume (CVC).
Providers can choose how much volume they require over and above the NBN designated minimum, which costs extra. Some of the cheaper ISP’s offering these quicker speeds, only have the minimum. We factor in additional CVC bandwidth, so our users get consistent speeds.”
The company also offers a dark fibre solution to its customers. For those that don’t know “Dark fibre is fibre that doesn’t carry any electronics on the end of it. Where a customer buys dark, the speed will be what ever electronics they put on the end of it. It could 10Gb/s or 100Gb/s. Typically used for large businesses that Aussie Broadband offers managed services to.”
Part of Aussie Broadband’s success has been its ability to win over customers using discounts. Britt says “with higher speed customers there’s typically $20-$30 of the price for 1-2Gb/s speeds and there’s $10 off the price for 100Gb/s, for new customers.”
And finally, Britt touched on the 5G and Elon Musk’s Satellite internet and how it would affect the current environment. Britt said “5G is a threat to the lower usage category. 5G can fill that gap reasonably well. Elon Musk’s Satellite internet is a real threat to the SkyMuster NBN product which Aussie Broadband do not offer.”
The ISP this week also announced its first customer of a new white label solution targeted at major retail brands. It allows the sale of Aussie’s internet and VoIP services under their own brand. Using this arrangement, Aussie Broadband might be able to counter the rising bandwidth CVC demands of its customer base, in turn minimising exposure to excess fees charged by NBN Co when CVC limits are breached. Either way, Aussie Broadband is definitely a growth stock with a bright future.
Shares are trading at $3.07 and are up 55% year to date.
