Exetel No Longer Offers "Naked" ADSL Plans

Exetel no longer offers "naked" ADSL plans to new users. The reasons for withdrawing these services are that they offer absolutely no operational advantage to the customer and with the ongoing changes in carrier pricing policies there are no longer any cost/price advantages.

Operationally any ADSL user ("naked" or standard) HAS to have a PSTN line connected. The theoretical difference between a "naked" ADSL service and a standard ADSL service is that the carrier has to 'disable' the ability of the line to carry a voice signal. So there is no operational difference and the "naked" line, if anything, costs more to install than a standard line. Some carriers created an artificial price difference between "naked" and "standard" ADSL services using the 'fat' available in profit margins on ADSL services in the recent past.

As prices of residential have fallen the 'fat' previously available to make an artificial price difference has 'disappeared' and there is now a, very grudging on the part of the carriers, $3.00 'discount' from the price of a full service PSTN line versus the cost of a disabled PSTN line.

While we fully understand that every dollar counts in terms of a customer's expenditure this particular variant of ADSL incurs a supplier with much higher provisioning and support costs and makes things quite difficult when/if a customer wants to change a "naked" service from one supplier to another and even more issues if they wish to move from a "naked' service back to a standard ADSL service with another provider.