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Posted Fri 21 December 2007 @ 10:20 a.m. by Sarah

The decision released by the Commerce Commission yesterday stating that prepay mobile services are covered under number portability seems like a fitting end to 2007. Number portability was quietly introduced to the user on April 1 after years of wrangling and it seemed to herald a new era in the New Zealand telecommunication landscape. Then on April 3, just three days after its introduction, we posted a Downstream blog - Vodafone don’t want Telecom Prepay customers to Port. Newspaper reports...

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Is Xtra in Control of its Technology?

Posted Sun 16 December 2007 @ 4:58 a.m. by Ernie

What on earth is going on at embattled Xtra? Imagine having 180 suburban customers off line for ten days and apparently having no notion what is wrong nor how to fix it!A TUANZ staff member told me this ongoing saga about their home Xtra account:"For the past ten days I have been unable to access the Internet from home, but have been able to access Xtra from external email so I've assumed the problem was a home hardware issue. "To be on the safe side, I rang Xtra and was...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Innovation | ISPs

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Broadband the Answer to the OECD Report - Hodgson

Posted Thu 13 December 2007 @ 3:27 p.m. by Ernie

Economic Development Minister Pete Hodgson is onto it! Broadband is one of just two examples of issues he siezed on of ways to rectify New Zealand's accelerating slither down the slippery OECD slope!Grilled on National Radio this morning by Geoff Robinson, with Bill English in the studio ready to pounce, Hodgson was asked "We need to work harder and cleverer, at what?" His reply: "Lots of things. Why don't I just give you two examples? This country's got a pretty modest investment in what we call...

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ComCom Announces Final UBS Price

Posted Thu 13 December 2007 @ 3:16 p.m. by Ernie

Final price determinations for Telecom's Unbundled Bitstream Service were announced this morning by the Commerce Commission. Ranging from $27.44 for a basic service with POTS, to $84.62 for a rural service without POTS, the prices are within a few percent of the Commission's August draft report and contain no surprises. They'll be effective from the second half of next year, though from past experience and with service providers champing at the bit they'll probably start to influence the market...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Innovation | ISPs | Regulatory | TUANZ policy

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Mobile entrepreneur stifled by telco charges

Posted Thu 13 December 2007 @ 1:34 p.m. by Sarah

“I’ve given up on the telcos for now,” Anthony Hurst told me when I rang to find out how he was getting on with his plan to make his corporate videos available on mobile. Hurst runs Digital Productions and it was his company that filmed the YouTube video which Ernie and I ‘starred’ in earlier this year. He called me recently to talk about his frustrations in trying to set up a new venture – creating short videos that real estate agents can send to clients with 3G mobile phones. “One key service...

Categories: Innovation | Vendors | Wireless carriers

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ICT Identity Rohan Mendis Retires

Posted Wed 12 December 2007 @ 1:42 p.m. by Ernie

Rohan Mendis is to retire as ICT Manager for NZ Police at the end of this week after a very distinguished career.Rohan was not only one of the founders of TUANZ back in the mid eighties, but also served at various times on the TUANZ Board and as Vice Chairman. His role in Police has involved some interesting and occasionally controversial times.The Telecommunications Review last year described Rohan thus:"Rohan Mendis is regarded as a nice guy and superb networker with an underlying...

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EU finds in favour of city fibre network built with public/private money

Posted Wed 12 December 2007 @ 8:54 a.m. by Sarah

With local governments eyeing up fibre networks and Minister Cunliffe suggesting at the Digital Summit that the central government could put some cash on the table, there arises the vexed issue of whether public money will stifle private investment. A useful overseas case study in this area is the City of Amsterdam’s fibre network in which a third is owned by the council, a third by two private investors and the remaining third by five housing corporations. The high-speed open access network connects...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Innovation | Regulatory

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Carriers get Premium say on Short Codes

Posted Thu 6 December 2007 @ 2:06 p.m. by Sarah

I've recently learned that the short codes for Premium text services are given out solely via the discretion of the carriers. That they are not, as I had assumed, administered by the Number Administration Deed. This means that any Content Service Provider that runs a text campaign has to go to each carrier independently to get a short code. For example, if it is 1234 they must first go to Telecom to secure it, and then to Vodafone. And of course neither carrier can discuss the CSPs application...

Categories: Wireless carriers

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The ever-decreasing Connect section in the NZ Herald

Posted Thu 6 December 2007 @ 9:30 a.m. by Sarah

I was sorry to pick up the morning paper today and see that the Connect section in the New Zealand Herald has been reduced to half a page. Auckland readers will recall that only 18 months ago the Herald had two Connect sections – Connect @ Work on a Tuesday that ran for a page and a half, and Connect @ Home on a Friday that covered a full page. The small number of advertisements in the Herald’s business section is no doubt the reason why the section’s size and content (two-thirds opinion pieces,...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Regulatory | Wireless carriers

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Major Alert for Telecom's Mobile Roamers to Australia

Posted Thu 6 December 2007 @ 8:50 a.m. by Ernie

"Loan a Phone Each Time You Roam" sounds like a throwback to the nineteen eighties. But believe it or not, that's the Hobson's Choice facing many of Telecom's corporate mobile customers when they go to Oz from about February onward!Telstra's CDMA network, on which Telecom's customers have roamed in Oz, will close in the next few weeks. Telecom has been scrambling to provide mobile customers with a workable alternative, but the results look very shaky from the user perspective.The CIO of...

Categories: Vendors | Wireless carriers

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Telecom highlights its deal with WorldxChange on FTTP services

Posted Wed 5 December 2007 @ 9:30 a.m. by Sarah

One of the talking points at the Digital Future Summit was the remark by Paul Reynolds that Telecom is prepared to share infrastructure. It was a theme he expanded on at the After 5s, giving assurances that Telecom has no intention of building fibre over the top of another network and that where it’s economically viable they will seek to share resources. He also raised the announcement at the Summit by Telecom Wholesale GM Matt Crockett that services on Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) in new subdivisions...

Categories: Events | Fixed line carriers | Innovation

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Telecom CEO on a Peacekeeping mission

Posted Wed 5 December 2007 @ 9:22 a.m. by Sarah

“An industry at war,” is how Telecom CEO Paul Reynolds described the New Zealand telecommunications landscape. He was speaking to the TUANZ membership at the After 5s in Auckland last night in only his second public appearance since taking up the job in October. Reynolds signaled a desire lead Telecom toward helping to create a more cooperative industry and appeared to win over the audience in the room, many of whom are battle scared from years of dealing with the ‘old’ Telecom. As he told one...

Categories: Events | Fixed line carriers | Wireless carriers

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Vodafone Deliberately Stunting Growth - Budde

Posted Wed 5 December 2007 @ 9:10 a.m. by Ernie

Australian telecommunications analyst Paul Budde took a gigantic swipe at Vodafone this morning on National Radio.Vodafone, Budde, claimed, has been deliberately limiting its market share in New Zealand to around 55% as a deliberate ploy to avoid regulatory intervention. He claims the company believes that if its market share got any larger the regulator would step in.Budde was scathing about Telecom's mobile, which he describes as having been "a shambles ever since mobile was invented"...

Categories: Innovation | ISPs | Regulatory | TUANZ policy | Wireless carriers

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Digital Future Summit in Retrospect

Posted Sun 2 December 2007 @ 8:10 p.m. by Ernie

It had its sceptics and detractors, but the Digital Future Summit was in my humble view a stunning success.Way over 500 people gathered. There had been concern that the mixture of community, public sector, and business people would be an "oil and water" cocktail. But it wasn't. They mixed, shared ideas, and melded - brilliantly. The meeting of minds was wonderful.The technology was great - an electronic brain dump emerged from the audience across a battery of laptops even as the speakers...

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NZ Mobile Termination Rates Get Worse Relative to Australia

Posted Sun 2 December 2007 @ 7:42 p.m. by Ernie

Australia's ACCC is facing up to mobile carrier Optus on mobile termination charges.The ACCC set termination rates at 12c/minute for the first half of 2007, reducing to 9c by the end of 2008. Optus has challenged the ACCC through the Review Tribunal, wanting instead to maintain the current rate of 12c. The ACCC has responded by attacking Optus's calculations, claiming that its benchmarking is selective and flawed.Meanwhile the corresponding termination rate in NZ is wafting gently...

Categories: Regulatory | TUANZ policy | Wireless carriers

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