BuddeBlog

You may recall an article I wrote two years ago based on the book published by internationally-acclaimed Aboriginal artist, Tex Skuthorpe.

Tex not only lives here in Bucketty - he is also the partner of our HR manager. We are very privileged to be able to regularly tap into Tex’s wealth of knowledge and wisdom. At our annual BuddeComm conference in May he gave a painting workshop and we hope to show this off to you on our Christmas card later this year.

I am motivated to write about Tex because of something I have heard him say many times:

 In my language we don’t have a word for knowledge.

This is an astonishing notion to us, but Tex explains that the reason there is no word for knowledge in his language is that to his Noonghaburra people everything is knowledge - the land, the stories - everything around them is knowledge.

Tex recently had exhibitions in Sydney, Helsinki and Stockholm, but this week Yarramalong, a community adjacent to Bucketty, had the honour of hosting Tex’s latest exhibition, called, like his book, Treading Lightly.

I am currently working on a book, myself - on my pet subject, history - and I recently spent quite a bit of time researching pre-history. As a result it became clear to me that people, let’s say, 40,000 years ago were actually very similar to the people of today. They enjoyed a chat around the campfire; had meals together; boys and girls flirted with each other; the men took a drink together; they played with their children and grandchildren, and so on.

And life could be tough for them, as it can be nowadays - they lived through wars, famine and disease, just like us.

The Treading Lightly exhibition was opened by Tom Jeffrey, Chair of the Board of Studies of the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and Tom made the comment that the problems people had 40,000 years ago are the same as we have today, but that the scale of these problems differentiates the past from the present.

The Aboriginal people were able to survive for more than 40,000 years, yet we are saying that we will be lucky to survive into the next century. We claim to live in the ‘age of knowledge’ but in fact, like our ancestors, the knowledge actually resides within us, the people. And we need to use what we intuitively know of the world if we are going to survive.

If we look inwards we will find the solution. We do have the wherewithal, not only survive, but to flourish and reach even greater heights. We are facing problems that have been experienced before, but we are being held back by their sheer magnitude.

As the Noonghaburra people have been saying for thousands of years, all the knowledge we need exists within and around us. Let’s take the simple statement In my language we don’t have a word for knowledge seriously and look inwards for solutions, rather than searching for some external Holy Grail.

Modern technology, especially facilitated by the Internet, makes it even more possible to share knowledge and for the modern-day ‘tribes’ to communicate and collaborate. Together we know all that is necessary to survive into the future. And as the complexity of our world increases so do the tools to enable us to move forward into the challenging centuries ahead.

Let’s sit around the global table, share the knowledge and get things done.

Treading Lightly: www.treadinglightly.sveiby.com

Indonesia continues to see its telecommunications sector grow, despite the occasional setback. The country of around 250 million people is obviously a huge potential market; however, it has some particularly big challenges to confront in building the necessary telecommunications infrastructure to cover a uniquely complex geography. At the same time, the nation has had to deal with a range of social, political and economic issues that have been proving problematic.

The government has been gradually reshaping the telecom industry, a process that took on a new impetus following the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s. In more recent times, Indonesia has been experiencing healthy sustained growth in subscriber numbers and revenues. While fixed-line teledensity remains disconcertingly low (just over 8% in early 2008), the advent of fixed wireless services has boosted the growth rate in the last few years and provided much-needed basic telephone services to previously unserved communities. The roll-out of fixed wireless infrastructure has been well supported by the operators with Bakrie Telecom and PT Telkom leading the way. Although the statistics were somewhat imprecise, by end-2007 fixed wireless services made up about half the total fixed-line subscriber base.

In the meantime, Indonesia’s mobile market continues to grow, expanding at an annual rate of close to 50%. By early 2008 the total mobile subscriber base had passed 90 million, up from 12 million just six years earlier. While the country’s mobile penetration was suddenly approaching 40%, the industry view was that there was still considerable potential for further growth in the market. It was expected that the milestone of 120 million mobile subscribers would be reached by end-2008. At the same time market interest started to focus on the 3G services already being offered by five operators. Telkomsel was indeed making its presence felt in the market, claiming about 80% of the five million 3G subscribers at end-2007.

The number of Internet users in Indonesia was estimated at more than 25 million by early 2008, representing a relatively low penetration of 10%. The Internet subscription market was generally depressed with less than 4 million subscribers reported in early 2008. Broadband Internet access was virtually non-existent. While the government was continuing to promote greater use of online services, these efforts appeared to have little impact.

In a move that some observers felt could have a negative impact on investment in the country’s telecom sector, Indonesia’s competition watchdog, the KPPU, announced in May 2007 that there was evidence of cross-ownership of Indosat and Telkomsel that was violating the country’s anti-monopoly laws. The KPPU alleged that the cross-ownership by Singapore’s state-owned holding company Temasek in two of Indonesia’s mobile operators violated the 1999 anti-monopoly law. At the time, Temasek owned a 56% stake in Singapore Telecom, which had a 35% stake in PT Telkomsel. Temasek’s wholly-owned Singapore Technologies Telemedia controlled 75% of Asia Mobile Holdings, a company that owned 40% of PT Indosat. Together, PT Telkomsel and PT Indosat controlled more than 80% of the domestic mobile market. The issue subsequently underwent a process of resolution by the courts. By June 2008, the parties were waiting on a decision by the Supreme Court, after Temasek appealed a lower court’s adverse ruling.

Key highlights:

• Indonesia’s mobile market passed 90 million subscribers in early 2008 with penetration running at about 37%.
• After more than seven straight years of strong growth, the annual increase in mobile subscribers was almost 50%.
• Indonesia’s 3G market was still in its infancy two years after launch, with 3G subscribers representing only about 4% of the total mobile subscriber base.
• Mobile market leader Telkomsel had made a big impact on the still small 3G market with 80% of the five million subscribers coming into 2008.
• Internet penetration remained low (10% user penetration by end-2007) and Internet subscription rates were considerably lower.
• Broadband Internet access numbers in Indonesia were starting to grow, but penetration remained low (0.1%).

BuddeComm just published a new report titled: 2008 Asia - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Indonesia and Timor Leste

It is not only the Hollywood studios and Internet companies eyeing off the online video space. There are other interesting developments taking place, mainly driven by the broadcasters. In the UK, media companies such as the BBC have launched services that offer TV programmes over the Internet. In the USA, News Corp’s Fox and NBC Universal launched their online video offering called Hulu and in Australia there is an offering called iView from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Services such as these differentiate themselves from sites such as YouTube by offering professional/commercial content, as opposed to User Generated Content (UGC).

There are also similar services in the Netherlands (Uitzendinggemist.nl), France (Canal+à la demande) and Germany (Premiere).

United Kingdom

The rapid take-up of broadband in the UK has provided a significant addressable base to which rights holders - whether the major broadcasters or individuals - can distribute their content. New service launches and trials have included BSkyB’s Sky Player (previously Sky Anytime) service and the BBC’s iPlayer trial. In addition to services which use P2P file sharing technology to exploit the consumer’s computer HDDs, faster broadband speeds along with improvements in video compression technologies also enable operators to offer streamed video services.

The Internet has emerged as an increasingly popular platform for broadcasters to distribute content. Itv.com re-launched in mid-2007 offering free streamed online access to its live channels and to some content on demand. The BBC’s iPlayer followed suit, going in December 2007 after two years of trials: By April 2008 the seven-day Internet-based catch-up service had a unique monthly audience of 1.4 million and was dealing with over 700,000 daily viewing requests. Users can either download programmes to their PC through P2P technology or stream it directly using a Flash-based media player. Streamed programmes outnumber downloads by eight to one. Channel 4 has since taken a similar path, with a seven-day streamed seven-day catch-up service on Channel4.com Sky re-launched its Internet service as Sky Player in May 2008, offering free access to content on demand from a range of its channels.

DVRs on different platforms offer a range of services and functionalities:

• Sky Player ‘pushes’ preview content not yet broadcast on Sky to the DVR hard drive, giving consumers an opportunity to access ‘first see’ content on demand, free of charge.
• Freeview+ (formerly Freeview Playback) also includes series linking.
• Top Up TV Anytime uses a ‘pull’-based DVR model - the user selects content to download to the hard drive.

USA

By mid-2008 most of the major US television networks were offering some form of online viewing, although their offerings remain limited and the quality of streaming variable.

Increasingly, some of the networks have been offering shows not just through their own sites, but elsewhere on the web using ad-supported models, paid-for-rental and/or to-own models. American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for example, appears focused on offering its top programming on its own website whilst making available a mix of new and older shows through the iTunes store.

CBS on the other hand has built relationships with other video services, such as AOL, Microsoft, CNET Networks, Comcast, Bebo and Joost, set up by the founders of Skype. NBC launched a Beta-version of NBC Direct, an Internet-based catch-up service (with shows available up to seven days after broadcast and only watchable for 48 hours after download).

During 2007 NBC and Apple’s iTunes parted ways, and instead started selling downloads through Amazon’s unBox, Sandisk’s Fanfare and Netfix, among others.

Another notable venture is Fox and NBC’s web platform called Hulu, outlined in the exhibit below.

 TV shows on the Internet - service examples

(Source: BuddeComm, 2008)

For further information, see separate reports:

• Global - Digital Media - Online Video Media;
• Global - Digital Media - Social Networks & UGC;
• Global - Digital Media - Digital Video Recorders (DVR);
• Australia - Digital Media - IPTV;
• United Kingdom - Convergence - Triple Play & Digital TV;
• USA - Convergence - Digital TV & IPTV.