This is how I see Aussie Broadband, for what it's worth.
First, for residential customers, they have a few main benefits over traditional ISP's which I think have been responsible for a decent portion of Aussie's growth so far.
- Best-in-class all-aussie support, including phone, live chat, etc. Suiting both older mums/dads and the younger generation who may prefer live chat.
- Plenty of self-service and capabiliies to satisfy enthusiasts. This is important because enthusiasts are normally the ones suggesting an ISP to the rest of the friends and family, and with the the aussie technical support, that makes it an easier sell to the oldies.
- No BS approach. No contracts, no shady or misleading conditions or caveats, up front costs, change plans (up or down) at any time, etc.
- Good at working between customers and NBN to installs and issues resolved. They fight for the customer arguably better than any other NBN retailer.
From a business point of view, and this is based on my observations working in local government, Telstra are bastards and Optus are hopeless. I think there's little reason to clarify why Telstra are bastards. Their whole business model revolves around screwing people over, especially 10+ years ago. Since NBN, I only look at Telstra for mobile connectivity these days. Optus on the other hand just always seem so incompontent. They're so sloooow to do anything. You literally have to wait half a year to give them your money as getting any servie service provisioned takes forever. Also, in my experience they have the most outages, often due to their own silly mistakes. As for TPG and Vocus, I don't really have any experience with them so can't really comment.
The internet landscape has changed drastically in Australia over the last 10 years, and there's even more change to come in terms of wireless (5G and low-orbit satellite). I think Aussie Broadband are the most agile of all ISP's at the moment, and feel they'd be the fastest to adapt their business to change. I don't think they're going to ever become as big as Telstra, but I think they'll do well as Australia's 3rd largest ISP, and will continue to go after the market that values service over saving a few dollars per month. I see them sitting at comfortably at six times their current customer base, if they can get there.
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