Telstra BigPond (a major Australian Internet Service Provider, with an approximate 50% market-share) already has among the most successful corporate presences in the virtual environment of Second Life. Right now, BigPond is in the process of launching a new initiative: A dedicated kiosk where BigPond customers can get support from live staff, both in text and through Second Life's integrated voice system.
The kiosk will be staffed by BigPond customer-service representatives from 11AM to 10PM Monday through Friday, Australian Eastern Standard time.
"Our launch of a dedicated virtual customer service team is an indication of the popularity of Second Life and provides us with another innovative way to continue to give our members award-winning customer service," said BigPond Group Managing Director, Justin Milne -- admittedly that's spinning so fast that a couple magnets and some copper wire would just about allow you to replace the Snowy River Hydro-Electric scheme.
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BigPond maintains sixteen simulators in Second Life, forming a subcontinent of slightly over one million square metres of virtual space. Five of these simulators are for residential use, while the remainder present a variety of information, entertainment and activities.
Additionally, while Australia (like much of the rest of the world) is subject to metered bandwidth systems, the BigPond portion of Second Life is largely unmetered bandwidth for most BigPond customers.
In the past there has been some confusion about what portion of Second Life has been unmetered for BigPond customers -- initially just the BigPond islands themselves were unmetered, then later all of Second Life, excluding third-party audio and video streams, however Telstra's Crystal Davidsmeyer has confirmed for us that at present, only the BigPond portion of Second Life enjoys this privileged unmetered status.
The launch party for BigPond's support kiosk is running now, having kicked off at 5PM Australian Eastern Standard time, Monday 1 September. If you're an Australian Second Life user you can hop down there now and partake in the fun. Staff are also giving away L$ prizes and other treats. They're giving away over L$20,000K in prizes and things should take off from about 7PM Australian Eastern Standard time, as Aussies get home from work and get online.
