BuddeBlog

I recently tried this new site and I am impressed.

The site provides an Internet price comparison service, does the calculations for consumers, comparing all plans on offer, including those linked to handset deals, in seconds. With the consumer providing information about their individual mobile phone habits, the service is able to specifically calculate what deal would be the most cost-effective for them. The retailing rates of all the different packages are regularly updated, enabling users of the site to get an up-to-the-minute price best suited to them without having to go to individual stores and attempt to work out each deal on the shop floor.

Half of all new cars sold in the United States, Western Europe and Japan will be telematics-capable by 2006, according to a new report. Telematics is the technology used in two-way communications services from a moving vehicle.

The study, by Strategy Analytics, says clear product positioning and partnering strategies will be vital if the technology opportunity is to be fully realised by both the IT and vehicle industries.

The report says that as new applications emerge product branding, customer ownership and management of the service element will become major strategic issues for market players. Strategy Analytics warns that some of the emerging telematics applications – e-mail, personal information management, push/pull m-commerce and remote access – will result in strong competition between in-car terminals and portable devices. Despite this, the report says that current trends in converging technology markets, combined with developments in in-car voice synthesis and integration technology will drive telematics growth. Growth will be especially strong in the large and luxury car markets, with 85% to 90% of new cars supporting telematics by 2006.

Joanne Downie, Strategy Analytics’ Managing Consultant, said that partnering, collaboration and product positioning would be a key factor in addressing the opportunities offered by telematics.

The short-term telematics opportunity, for emergency, roadside assistance and congestion avoidance, requires a low-level service input – these could be easily managed and very positively branded by car makers – In the longer term, however, points of interest, dynamic navigation, Internet-centric, mobile office, mobile family and m-commerce applications would emerge as major service opportunities – Car makers have little, if no, service experience and cellular operators, applications specialists and content providers have very limited knowledge of the in-car environment – partnerships right across the telematics value chain must be built.

In revenue terms, the report predicts that the world market for in-car telematics terminals will grow from US$7.7 billion this year to $24.3 billion by 2006. In production terms, Strategy Analytics says that the world market for in-car telematics terminals will grow from 4.8 million units this year to 24.8 million units by 2006.

Source Asia Daily

Telstra’s joint venture with Austar in New Zealand is a clear demonstration that the company understands the importance of the broadband market. In Australia, however, they are ill-prepared.

Even though it is clear that 20%-25% of Internet users would love to use high-speed Internet access at a price of around $30-$50 a month, it took Telstra four years to get its act together on the cable modem market in Australia. However, it is still relying here on old and expensive technology, as well as on cooperation with Foxtel.

It is common knowledge that Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer are pretty frustrated with their Foxtel partner, Telstra.

Telstra holds 50% of Foxtel; the other two own 25% each. The media barons would like to turn Foxtel into a superhighway, but Telstra doesn’t want that because they would like to run this highway themselves. I find it quite astonishing that, given it is in partnership with the largest media company in the world and the largest media company in Australia, Telstra is not using the opportunity to turn Foxtel into a raging success story. This is behaviour typical of the old Telstra. Imagine the potential in this alliance if all three put their weight behind a national information highway built around Foxtel.

Don’t be surprised to see some interesting developments within the next few months. Optus has its cable modem service ready and is looking for a partner. We could see a repeat of the pay TV saga of the mid-1990s when the various consortia played a continuous game of musical chairs.

With the New Zealand jv in place with Austar, we could also see a closer cooperation between the two in Australia. Telstra’s broadband network only covers parts of cities, while Austar is operating in regional centres and in the bush. I do hope that Telstra has learned its lesson, because any activities with Austar will be closely scrutinised by the ACCC. If they are ready to become part of the new scheme of things, they will have to sit down with the ACCC beforehand and discuss their plans in great detail in order to avoid another knockback.

If such a merger were to be tabled, I am sure the issue of open access would be brought up by the ACCC and/or the industry. Debates are currently taking place in North America and in Europe. Open access would allow ISPs and other companies to use the broadband networks to deliver services to their customers as well. Over time this is the way to go. In the meantime the regulator will have to address issues such as investments made by the incumbent operators.

Expect some very interesting developments here over the next few months.

While for many South Pacific Islanders the Internet remains an elusive service, it hasn’t stopped many companies from profiting from this phenomenon by selling domain names.

Internet services are firmly established on Hawaii and Guam but progress in the other countries is slow, mainly due to the lack of proper and affordable networks. Most countries have only one ISP and this doesn’t stimulate either competitive prices (dial-up rates can be as high as US$10 per hour) or innovative new services, including e-commerce. Also, homes with a telephone connection are still in the minority.

However, countries in the South Pacific region are using the Internet as a cyber resource. They offer ‘catchy’ domain names under their country code and are generating interesting revenues from this service. In 1999 Niue became the first country in the world that had more Internet hosts than inhabitants. In that year there were 20,000 Internet hosts for the 2,500 inhabitants! Tonga is another country that is active in this market, with their country access code ‘to’. And the Federated States of Micronesia sold its ‘fm’ code to close to 1,000 fm radio stations around the globe.

Exhibit 1 – Domain hijacking

Prompted by the controversy in Pitcairn Island, the United States government and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted in February 2000, to remove authority over the island nation’s Internet address suffix from a private company and return it to the country. Several other nations in the Pacific region, only now beginning to enter the Internet era, have also recently discovered the loss to renegade registrar companies, largely through unauthorised sale or similar savvy business moves, of their Web country codes originally assigned in the early 1990s by Jon Postel, one of the Internet’s founders.

Considering the limited number of dot-com suffixes available and the incredible demand by organisations for Web addresses, it is no wonder that these two-letter dot domains are such precious Internet real estate with potentially huge financial value to the small Pacific nations originally intended to own and use them. American Samoa – whose designated Web country code ‘as’ is currently being marketed for large profits in Scandinavia by a New York City company known as GDNS – recently convened its legislature to begin investigation of its lost domain. The increased incidence of such situations has prompted ICANN to draft a formal proposal to return sovereign control of all domains to the individual countries and territories for which they were originally designated.

With modern international networks in place the region has one of the most advanced telecommunications infrastructures in the world, with a very high percentage of digitisation, providing the countries with an excellent platform to participate in the global telecommunications village and to profit from new e-trading facilities, independent of place and distance. Of course, the key to success here is the Internet, and countries in the area have linked into this global network.

At the same time, in 1999 Tokelau was one of the three countries in the world not yet connected to the Internet. Perhaps they should leave it like that and become the last place on earth where you can escape the cyber world.

Many governments in the region are actively using the Internet to promote their countries to the outside world. Western Samoa was amongst the first to embrace the Internet for promotion; the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Fiji followed. By 2000 most islands had their own services in operation. With generally low levels of reliable communications the Internet is also used to send news from the islands to the rest of the world. Not surprisingly such services are much sought after by foreign governments (USA, Australia, New Zealand) especially during periods of political crisis.

Since 1996, the University of the South Pacific is leading the area of tele-education. Several diploma and degree courses are available to students on the Islands.

What a great move by Telstra and Austar – to merge their New Zealand operations.

Telstra NZ operates a very successful corporate telecoms service and Saturn operates a very successful broadband service in Wellington. Together they are now heading into the brave new world of broadband services. This, of course, is clearly a reaction to Telecom New Zealand’s entrance into the Australian market through the acquisition of AAPT – egos are rampant in this industry! Nevertheless the jv makes a lot of business sense and is a good strategic move from the two companies.

While Telecom New Zealand has been able to transform itself into a lean and mean new world telco, it couldn’t resist using its monopolistic status to employ tricks typical of an incumbent, like delaying competition, high prices in markets they dominate, bullying of ISPs, etc.

For many years Clear and Vodafone (at that stage Bell South) failed to make an impact, and New Zealanders didn’t receive the benefits of competition to the same extent as did others in more competitive markets. Then Vodafone stepped in with competitive mobile services and led the current spectacular growth in this market, quickly followed by a similar regime from TCNZ.

The new government also entered the fray with an Inquiry into the telco market. However, this will produce few results until we are well into 2001. Since three months is a long time in our industry and a year will produce a vastly different environment yet again, the value of the Inquiry is debatable. The Telstra Saturn deal will do far more for competition than the Inquiry. I hope that the Inquiry will cease to dwell on the past and on voice services, and instead provide a vision and sound strategies for the future.

I am impressed by the commitment from Telstra Saturn – a billion dollars is a lot of money, especially in a country the size of New Zealand. It includes, not only the two major cities, but the country as a whole, with an innovative coastal submarine cable network. All good stuff!

I don’t know if the new company will get the five years it says it needs to roll out the network. As I have mentioned before, TCNZ is flexible enough to respond quickly. In 1998 I indicated to TCNZ my disappointment about the termination of their First Media broadband project in New Zealand and their Pacific Star operation in Australia. This lost them their head-start in the Australian market (they were the fourth largest in 1997) and they had to pay big money for AAPT to come back. Now a similar scenario has emerged at home. It lost its broadband head-start and will now have to find an answer for the Telstra Saturn coup.

The New Zealand market has regained its vitality. New, vigorous competition will arrive and a range of new innovative services are around the corner.