TUANZ - Telecomunications Users Association Of New Zealand

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Roaming charges from Australia - Public inquiry

Posted Mon 30 June 2008 @ 5:25 a.m. by Ernie

Years of concerted lobbying from our sister group ATUG has paid off. The Australian government has announced a public inquiry into international roaming prices. TUANZ members with experience of either the charges for roaming from NZ to Australia, or international roaming prices in general, are invited to communicate your views to the respective user associations - Rosemary Sinclair at ATUG and/or Ernie Newman at TUANZ.User associations world wide, through our international body INTUG, have...

Categories: Wireless carriers

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Independent oversight group - I've met the Chair

Posted Thu 26 June 2008 @ 12:10 p.m. by Ernie

This morning I went to see Hon Barry Paterson, the retired High Court judge who chairs the IOG. I was a bit apprehensive – got to this stage of life without connecting with High Court judges – but he proved to be very approachable and personable (“call me Barry”). He was very interested in TUANZ and our role in the scheme of things, and has obviously got his head around the separation issues comprehensively. The IOG is about to launch a Web site which will bring them out of the closet, so to speak....

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US study calls for 1Gbps fibre network across the nation

Posted Wed 25 June 2008 @ 3:58 p.m. by Sarah

The US might have been caught napping when it comes to broadband infrastructure when compared to Asia and Europe, but an article in MacWorld shows that - at least a state level - they’re beginning to wake up. A report commissioned by a state program in North Carolina is calling for the US to establish a national goal of making at least 100 Mbps available to all Americans at affordable rates by 2012 and for this to be expanded to at least 1 Gbps by 2015. I’ve just downloaded the Executive...

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

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Life under LLU

Posted Tue 24 June 2008 @ 3:06 p.m. by Sarah

A couple of lively presentations from two distinctive players in the telco sector at the Telecommunications Summit. Duncan Blair, marketing manager from Orcon has just presented a lively session on their experience. He says his relationship with Telecom Wholesale – especially around backhaul “has been great”. Interesting to note that Blair says what will differentiate ISPs in future, won’t be product (any ground gained there will be fleeting), but it will be about customer service – the reputation...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Innovation | ISPs | Regulatory

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A Sydney wage from an Auckland location

Posted Tue 24 June 2008 @ 11:34 a.m. by Sarah

It’s the second day of the Telecommunications Summit in Auckland and Ernie has just outlined the case for fibre connectivity; in teleworking, in entertainment, in business, on the farm… and so forth. In the push for a fibre future TUANZ is increasingly being asked to prove the case for high-speed and ubiquitous connectivity. But perhaps the most compelling argument came, not from Ernie, but from Jo Kensington – a graphic designer who lives on the North Shore and works for a studio in Sydney. She's...

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

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Broadband – “As important to farmers in 2008 as the party line in 1968.”

Posted Tue 24 June 2008 @ 10:32 a.m. by Ernie

That was the assessment of Federated Farmers telecomms spokesman Don Aubrey at the telecommunications summit yesterday. In a refreshingly honest assessment, Don said farmers need bandwidth just as much as a consultant working in Queen Street. But it’s a two way benefit - he also noted that the hinterland needs access to farmers as much as farmers need access to the hinterland. He’ll also be a speaker next week at the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium, registrations for which are about to close. Don...

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Telecom outsources strategy to India

Posted Mon 23 June 2008 @ 5:11 a.m. by Ernie

Telecom is to outsource a contract to reshape its retail business to Indian company Tech Mahindra, a creation of British Telecom, according to Tom Pullar Strecker in the DomPost. The contract will involve up to 400 Tech Mahindra and Telecom staff. That's a big contract with huge ramifications.Four days ago I was unaware of Tech Mahindra. Then on Friday I happened to be chairing a session on IPTV at Communicasia in Singapore where I heard one of their people, Principal Consultant Harish...

Categories: Events | Fixed line carriers | Innovation | Vendors

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Exclusive - IOG re-discovered!

Posted Sat 21 June 2008 @ 8:12 a.m. by Ernie

Great news - the Independent Oversight group is alive and well, and has been located thanks to the network of TUANZ members.The first piece of intelligence arrived from Warrick Craill of the Ministry of Education enclosing a Computerworld article of 28 April quoting several of the IOG members.The second tip-off came from a member who wants to remain anonymous.But the real coup came late Friday afternoon in the form of a voicemail message from the Chairman of the Group, retired High Court Judge Barry...

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Is the Independent Oversight Group missing? Reward offered

Posted Fri 20 June 2008 @ 4:06 a.m. by Ernie

TUANZ has received shocking though unconfirmed reports that Telecom's Independent Oversight Group - the distinguished people charged with making sure Telecom is delivering Equivalence of Inputs to industry customers - is missing. It has not been seen since its appointment was announced on 18 April, and may be missing in action.Industry observers are speculating that the worst may have happened. Given the crucial monitoring role of the IOG, most people would have expected that by now it would have...

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Fastest connection speed in New Zealand

Posted Thu 19 June 2008 @ 4:20 p.m. by Sarah

Went to see for myself what the fastest connection speed in New Zealand will offer users today. Telecom Wholesale and WorldxChange were launching their Fibre-to-the-Home service at Kensington Park – an upmarket master-planned community in Orewa For $99 a month homeowners receive voice services and broadband with speeds up to 30Mbps (there’s a cheaper voice plan with minimal broadband for $45 a month). WorldxChange CEO Cecil Alexander stressed that although it’s a 30Mbps connection it really depends...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Innovation | ISPs

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Rural NZ, the Herald, and our Symposium

Posted Thu 19 June 2008 @ 10:23 a.m. by Ernie

Idly scanning the Herald from my hotel room here in Singapore a moment ago I was stunned and delighted to see a long piece about the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium, to be held in Rotorua the week after next. And to add icing, an opinion piece from Simon Hendery commending TUANZ on our work in the rural space – thanks Simon. The article features a DVD made by Symposium Chair Rod Oram and me on a farm near Auckland to promote the conference. This is the second time TUANZ has used YouTube...

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TUANZ back in print - Open Circuit in ComputerWorld

Posted Wed 18 June 2008 @ 7:18 p.m. by Sarah

Keen-eyed subscribers* of ComputerWorld will have noticed the magazine launched a brand new supplement called Open Circuit in association with TUANZ this week. That’s right, TUANZ has teamed up with ComputerWorld to produce a monthly supplement of telco news and views. As part of the alliance, we get a double-page spread inside the supplement. You can now view what we wrote online as editor Rob O’Neill has posted the stories on the ComputerWorld site today. There’s Ernie’s Column ‘From the Chief...

Categories: Innovation | TUANZ policy

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Caps, gamers and the next generation

Posted Mon 16 June 2008 @ 12:46 p.m. by Sarah

The Fieldays came to an end at 5pm on Saturday but before our events manager Leah and I could pack up and head out of town, we had to find someone to draw the winner of the GPS Navman (it was an enticement to get people to fill out the internet survey*). At exactly the right time along strolled Chris Jones – a young man wearing a baseball cap (we didn’t have a hat to draw the name from, so I figured he’d solve two problems at once). When he heard my request without hesitation he stopped, offered...

Categories: Events | Fixed line carriers | Innovation | TUANZ policy | Wireless carriers

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Size matters – Commerce Commission reports on Broadband performance

Posted Mon 16 June 2008 @ 8:53 a.m. by Sarah

The Commerce Commission’s report on Broadband performance shows that when it comes to DSL services, in general it’s the smaller ISPs that beat the larger players hands down “The best-performing ISPs are not those with the greatest growth or market share – indeed three of the largest ISPs, Telecom, Vodafone and Slingshot, achieved only average to below average results on both geographic and key performance metrics, although all are currently implementing large scale investment programmes.” On page...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | ISPs | Regulatory

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How broadband improves people's lives

Posted Mon 16 June 2008 @ 5:44 a.m. by Ernie

This ten minute video on YouTube, made by OFCOM the British regulator, is worth watching. Its very anecdotal but for those doubters who think 56kbps is ok, it shows what higher speeds do for the lives of ordinary people. Enjoy!

Categories: Events | Fixed line carriers | Innovation | ISPs | Wireless carriers

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Denmark still top of the OECD pops

Posted Sat 14 June 2008 @ 1:48 a.m. by Ernie

lllhh I was lucky enough today to catch up for lunch with Jorgen Abild Andersen, the personable Danish regulator who spoke at our Telecommunications Day in 2005. I still remember his opening question to then TUANZ Chairman Graeme Osborne and me - "So why ever did you not unbundle your local loop?" Jorgen is pictured above at the Tivoli in Copenhagen, partly obscured behind his deputy Finn Petersen, with yours truly.Denmark to me has always been the ultimate case study in regulation....

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More learnings from Sweden

Posted Fri 13 June 2008 @ 5:44 p.m. by Ernie

Its hard being a bloke! While my co-blogger Sarah and others in the TUANZ crew have been having a whale of a time sloshing around the Fieldays at Mystery Creek in their gumboots, I've had to hold the fort absorbing a whole lot of complex regulatory and policy issues here at the INTUG soiree in Stockholm. Them's the breaks!Leaving aside my earlier posting about Stokab and Lars Hedburg, I gathered a lot of insights about Swedish telecommunications and how it relates to New Zealand. For instance: - ...

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At the Fieldays

Posted Thu 12 June 2008 @ 9:04 a.m. by Sarah

We're at the Fieldays in Hamilton this week promoting rural broadband in general and the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium on 3 and 4 July in particular.I was at the stand all day yesterday and it was good fun getting out there and chatting to farmers. On the stand we have a survey which asks people to describe their internet connection and to tell us what they'd do if they received high speed broadband to their farm or property (it only takes a minute and you go into the draw to win a GPS...

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Fibre to the farm alive and well in northern Sweden

Posted Wed 11 June 2008 @ 2:34 p.m. by Ernie

Did you know that 200 villages in remote northern Sweden are covered by a fibre to the home network, with 80% coverage of the region’s homes and farms? That was my biggest “wow” from a riveting day here in Stockholm where I’ve been at a seminar on “An Open Telecoms Society” organized jointly by INTUG and the Swedish telecommunications user association, Telekomförening NTK. Lars Hedberg, Secretary General of the Swedish Urban Network Assn, was my informant and for me, the stand out speaker...

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Digital Development Council appoints Chair

Posted Tue 10 June 2008 @ 5:54 p.m. by Ernie

The new Digital Development Council has appointed Fran Wilde as Chair for an initial term of nine months. Fran is currently also chair of the Wellington Regional Council Previous roles have included cabinet minister, Mayor of Wellington city, and CEO of Trade NZ. This means the Council is all but complete. There are just two slots remaining to fill, one each earmarked for the community and volutasry sector and the ICT industry.

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

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LLU – the industry is keeping its word

Posted Mon 9 June 2008 @ 11:10 a.m. by Sarah

Vodafone’s announcement that it can now offer high speed broadband services on its own network (41 Auckland exchanges unbundled by October) had me delving into the Topics archive over the weekend. Exactly two years ago I wrote an article about what LLU would mean for Telecom’s competitors – it was just a month after the historic announcement that the government would force Telecom to open its exchanges. In the article I quoted Mark Rushworth (then CEO of ihug), Seeby Woodhouse (then owner of Orcon),...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | ISPs | Regulatory | Wireless carriers

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Travels - an interesting time looms

Posted Sun 8 June 2008 @ 8:38 p.m. by Ernie

I'm away these next two weeks. Heading for Scandanavia and then Singapore. Thus far (Sunday morning) I've got as far as London.Its been comforting to get a series of six automated texts from Vodafone NZ along the way - two at each of my three stopovers so far, and all identical. Just one word - "Unreadable." Succinct - yes. Cryptic - definitely. But despite all that its nice to have the assurance that as I globe trot on my TUANZ mission Russell and his fine team are looking out for this valued...

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Arigato gozaimasu Mr Semmoto

Posted Thu 5 June 2008 @ 11:54 a.m. by Sarah

Completely missed yesterday’s column by Fran O’Sullivan in the Business Herald but TUANZ board members didn’t; they were talking about it the board meeting yesterday. In the column Japanese businessman Sachio Semmoto lambasts the state of broadband in this country. A successful telecoms entrepreneur in Japan, he spends up to three months of the year in Christchurch and he’s caustic about the broadband services available in this country. O’Sullivan writes: New Zealand will simply “get killed” if...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Innovation | Wireless carriers

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Ernie and Rod on YouTube

Posted Tue 3 June 2008 @ 9:02 p.m. by Sarah

TUANZ Chief Executive Ernie Newman chats with business commentator and adjunct professor at Unitec Rod Oram about the challenges - and the potential - of high speed broadband to rural New Zealand on YouTube.This is in preparation for the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium on 3 and 4 July in Rotorua. Check out the video and register for the Symposium here. Symposium delegates can opt to come a day early and take part in a half-day tutorial on how to apply for funding from the government's $75...

Categories: Events | Fixed line carriers | Innovation | TUANZ policy | Wireless carriers

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TUANZ joins the Digital Development Council

Posted Mon 2 June 2008 @ 9:06 p.m. by Ernie

TUANZ is an inaugural member of the new Digital Development Council launched by Hon David Cunliffe at the Beehive last Thursday. The Minister's announcement indicates the high hopes he has that this "association of associations" will make a real contribution to the extension of the Digital Strategy beyond government and into the community.The Minister's statement includes all the background and details.TUANZ will be represented on the Council by Chief Executive Ernie Newman, with Chairman Chris O'Connell...

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