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Roaming charges - strong message given to mobile operators

Posted Tue 29 July 2008 @ 12:58 p.m. by Ernie

Strong heat is being applied to mobile phone companies in Europe and many other parts of the world over excessive charges for roaming and termination charges. Users are often the victim, with some extraordinary stories of "bill shock" for users who unwittingly used their mobile phones overseas with no idea of the likely cost.Nick White reports that at the end of a recent Westminster eForum on mobile termination rates and roaming charges where he spoke as Executive Vice Chairman...

Categories: Regulatory | TUANZ policy | Wireless carriers

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"Connected Nation" makes the Wall St Journal

Posted Tue 29 July 2008 @ 12:40 p.m. by Ernie

A highlight of the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium at Rotorua last month was the inspirational keynote by Dr Mark McElroy, Chief Operating Officer of Connected Nation. This Washington-based entity started life on a more modest scale as "Connect Kentucky."Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article is a concise summary of Connected Nation’s mission and its success. The rationale for the programme is neatly summed up - "Kentucky's plans to use the Internet to improve education and health care couldn't...

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2008 Innovation Awards finalists announced

Posted Tue 29 July 2008 @ 7:44 a.m. by Sarah

The finalists for the 2008 Innovation Awards have been announced, they are as follows: Initiative of the Year 2008 - sponsored by Voco* BayCity Communications* Kiwibank* Orcon/Nokia Siemens* TracMap NZ Limited* TracPlus Global Limited Mobile Application of the Year - sponsored by Motorola* Altaine Ltd* Kiwibank* TracMap NZ Limited Education Award - sponsored by Tyco Electronics* Farmside* Hawkes Bay DHB* King's College* National...

Categories: Education | Events | Innovation | Vendors

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PGG Wrightson’s Uruguay venture – a case for fibre to the farm?

Posted Mon 28 July 2008 @ 3:30 p.m. by Sarah

If I have one regret about the recent Rural Broadband Symposium, it’s that we didn’t convince anyone from PGG Wrightson to speak about NZ Farming Systems Uruguay (NZFSU). I’ve been following the venutre ever since a kind person sent me a copy of Craig Norgate’s presentation at the 20/20 Conference last year. Then, in the weekend I saw a Country Calendar item about it on TV1. As I understand it, NZFSU is a subsidiary of PGG Wrightson which has been listed on the NZX. The capital from the share...

Categories: Events | Fixed line carriers | Innovation

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TSO/Kiwi Share - giant leap forward

Posted Sun 27 July 2008 @ 9:27 p.m. by Ernie

The Telecommunications Users Forum’s report on the Telecommunications Service Obligation (“Kiwi Share) is very welcome. TUANZ would have liked to see it a long time ago. But as with number portability the TCF has shown its ability to pick up a complex task that has beaten others and produce a very good solution in a structured and timely way. The recommendations will be excellent for consumers. The old Kiwi Share was devised at a time when Telecom had a monopoly service across most of...

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Naked DSL, Digital Strategy and getting it right first time with fibre

Posted Thu 24 July 2008 @ 4:48 p.m. by Sarah

Another edition of ComputerWorld's monthly telecommunications supplement Open Circuit was published this week. The focus for TUANZ this month is the Digital Strategy 2.0 (an opinion piece by Ernie) and rural broadband (based on the Rural Broadband Symposium in Rotorua). ComputerWorld writer Jo Bennett has also interviewed two speakers at the Symposium, Dairy NZ general manager for research Eric Hillerton and Fonterra chief technology officer Andrew Wilshire. In addition, editor Rob O’Neill...

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Vive le Vanuatu's IT User Society

Posted Sun 20 July 2008 @ 6:02 p.m. by Sarah

Guidebooks may be good for directing you to a decent hotel but to get an understanding of a new country I don’t think you can go past the local newspaper. And so it proved with The Vanuatu Independent.Located beside an editorial with the rather startling title ‘Robert Mugabe was right!’ I came across an opinion piece headed up ‘Power Play’ by the interim secretary of the Vanuatu IT Users Society Dan McGarry. His subject was the two mobile phone companies in Vanuatu (Digicel and Telecom Vanuatu) that...

Categories: Wireless carriers

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Telecom gives fibre cold shower - but gets soap in its eyes

Posted Thu 17 July 2008 @ 3:43 p.m. by Ernie

Way back when Telecom had a bigger publicity machine than Barack Obama, a part of my daily work was contradicting their more outrageous assertions. Time has moved a long way and latterly TUANZ has had little to complain about in Telecom's public comments.But a few days ago I had to revert to type.TUANZ has a strong view that Fibre's time has come. There is a big groundswell of public support for ubiquitous ultra high speed broadband, based on the principles of open access, with telcos...

Categories: Fixed line carriers | Innovation | ISPs | Light relief | Vendors

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Rod Oram on TUANZ in Rotorua, Mangamaire, and fibre

Posted Thu 17 July 2008 @ 3:31 p.m. by Ernie

Rod Oram who chaired our Rural Broadband Symposium two weeks ago has covered it generously in his weekly column in the Sunday Star Times. The chunk about Mangamaire is well worth reading. What it shows is that you don't need to be a super-size telco to roll out a line of fibre optic cable in rural New Zealand. Reading it, I was reminded of the photo Mark McElroy showed of fibre cable being dragged across fields in Kentucky by a couple of horses.Fibre to the farm - a term that few people...

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

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Number reform takes a step forward

Posted Tue 15 July 2008 @ 4:33 p.m. by Ernie

Number administration has been a big bone of contention in New Zealand ever since the industry got together in 1998 to form the infamous Number Administration Deed. Since then TUANZ, and more lately Telecommunications Commissioner Dr Ross Patterson, have been protesting the unsatisfactory elements of the NAD from both a competition and administrative perspective.The NAD and the Telecommunications Carriers Forum recently formed a joint Working Party to consider the future of number administration....

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

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Operational separation - upbeat report by regulator

Posted Mon 14 July 2008 @ 4:40 a.m. by Ernie

Telecommunications Commissioner Dr Ross Patterson has given a very comprehensive progress report on operational separation to date. His presentation is available here.This factual account of New Zealand's experience should restore some element of rationality to the debate in Australia which is being dominated by the strident protestations of Telstra. Thank heaven New Zealand has moved way beyond those dark days!

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

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iPhone -Telecom Wholesale finds a creative work-around

Posted Mon 14 July 2008 @ 4:16 a.m. by Ernie

In the very best spirit of industry collaboration, the good people at Telecom Wholesale have developed a work-around for the problems of the iPhone launch. It goes like this: 1. Take a phone and an ipod 2. Strap the phone to the ipod 3. There is no step 3 It's that simple. wphone binding apps include duct tape, or a TUANZ lanyard, as they've used here. TUANZ is proud to be part of promulgating this world-leading, solution that illustrates Kiwi ingenuity at...

Categories: Innovation | Light relief | Wireless carriers

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...and even more on iPhone prices - user power prevails!

Posted Thu 10 July 2008 @ 9:44 a.m. by Ernie

A big victory for user power in Canada. Look at this.Just shows that occasionally customer feedback does get through!(The irony is that Canada is one of the few developed countries which, as far as I know, doesn't have an organised user group.)

Categories: Innovation | TUANZ policy | Vendors | Wireless carriers

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More on iPhone prices

Posted Thu 10 July 2008 @ 6:47 a.m. by Ernie

Kiwis aren't alone in protesting the cost of the iPhone - see yesterday's blog.Danielle Jacobs, my counterpart in the Belgian Telecommunications Users Group BELTUG, says she has never before seen so much media coverage about the price of a product. Belgian competition law prohibits bundling the cost of the handset with a subscription plan, so users there can only buy the phone as a stand alone purchase. And surprise, its more expensive than here in New Zealand. See these figures which INCLUDE...

Categories: Innovation | Regulatory | Vendors | Wireless carriers

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iPhone pricing is a competition issue

Posted Wed 9 July 2008 @ 9:42 a.m. by Ernie

The furore around Vodafone New Zealand’s iPhone pricing should have been anticipated. Timing is everything and the people Vodafone is targeting are really hurting from oil and food prices. Right now there’s huge community sensitivity about prices and anything that has the look of a rip-off. That’s why the protest last week by the truckies fell on such fertile ground with the very community that was its victim. Vodafone underestimated the public outrage. A year ago they might have got away with...

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“Collaboration is the name of the game” – Kordia

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 4:16 p.m. by Sarah

There is no one party that can alone connect New Zealand with high-speed broadband says Kordia chief executive Geoff Hunt: “Collaboration is the name of the game.” In the Symposium’s closing presentation Hunt summed up Kordia’s view of the way forward: Build robust backhaul networks More ubiquitous backhaul will enable better mobile coverage Regional self-help and some government funding needed Major beneficiaries need to become anchor customers for deployment viability – e.g. health services Kordia...

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

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3G mobile NZ-wide by 2010

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 3:23 p.m. by Ernie

Its official – Vodafone chose the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium this afternoon as the venue to announce expansion of its 3G network New Zealand-wide, with the same coverage essentially as its 2G network, within two years. That’s great news for rural and provincial NZ. In an industry where the supply of hype is never short, it was refreshing to hear General Manager Corporate Affairs Tom Chignell volunteer that Vodafone doesn’t pretend the whole solution about rural broadband is about wireless....

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Vodafone extends its 3G footprint

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 3:07 p.m. by Sarah

Tom Chignell, Vodafone general manager for corporate affairs has just announced that Vodafone will be extending its 3G broadband network to reach 97% of where New Zealanders live and work, bringing its total 3G infrastructure investment to $500 million. Here's the announcement in their press release - Ernie is taking notes and will blog in more depth soon:At the TUANZ Rural Broadband Symposium today, Vodafone General Manager Corporate Affairs, Tom Chignell announced the network build...

Categories: Events | Wireless carriers

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Have we made the problem so big that we will never start?

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 3:06 p.m. by Sarah

The business case for private investment in fibre to the farm doesn’t stack up – that’s what James Watts from Digital Nation has just told the Symposium. The fact that he’s decided to go ahead and do it anyway, has made for a fascinating case study this afternoon. Watts spoke about a project in which his company partnered with FX Networks to build a fibre backhaul loop connecting two towns in the Tararua District Council – Dannevirke and Eketahuna – with Palmerston North. When the fibre loop is...

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

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Chris O’Connell has a history!

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 2:18 p.m. by Ernie

The TUANZ Chairman has discovered he is following in family footsteps. Recently he was shown an old file of family clippings including his grandfather’s obituary. It seems his grandfather, before World War 1 as a farmer, was involved in laying copper cable to bring telecommunications into the remote valleys of Southland. A century on and Chris now is playing a major role in the Nelson Marlborough Inforegion. Years back, he and colleagues called a meeting in Nelson. Farmers, tourist operators, fruit...

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Moving to the case studies

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 1:32 p.m. by Ernie

So we-re moving into the specific case studies around rural broadband. Miles McConway from Environment Bay of Plenty has led the charge, talking on behalf of a cluster of Councils that have formed the Bay Broadband Initiative. The group does not want to become a telco. It aims to make the region a telco friendly zone, Miles said. It's starting by compiling maps of telecoms infrastructure, and aggregating the Councils’ telecommunications demand. It's looking to support a requirement for...

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

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Satellites, emergencies, civil defence, and business

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 11:33 a.m. by Ernie

Baycity has been telling the Rural Broadband Symposium about its iNetVu high bandwidth connectivity and specifically the application for emergencies. GM Duncan Boennic told the gathering satellite is applicable not only an excellent stepping stone where wired broadband is not available, but also has great attraction as a backup communications channel for post-disaster applications. Civil defence professionals like to see three independent forms of communication available. Satellite has many advantages...

Categories: Events | Innovation | ISPs | Vendors | Wireless carriers

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Land of a thousand spreadsheets

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 11:07 a.m. by Sarah

When Landcorp decided to centralise the data from the 112 farms it has scattered across the country, they thought it would take six months. Two and half years later and every activity that occurs on Landcorp’s 369,316 hectares is now recorded in PAM – the Production And Management system the SOE installed to keep track of the 962,000 animals it farms. Landcorp national manager of marketing and procurement Phil McKenzie told the Rural Broadband Symposium that before PAM arrived it was a case...

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

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Truckie action exposes network inadequacy

Posted Fri 4 July 2008 @ 9:15 a.m. by Ernie

Just checked the Herald site to see how the protest is going and how I'll get on returning from Rotorua later today.They have links to Web cams in various cities so you can look at traffic live in the main centres. Great idea so I went to look.But can you get onto them? No way. Total network overload.Just shows how little leeway our networks have to accommodate any kind of surge. You have to wonder how they'd perform in a civil emergency?

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

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Practical applications on the farm

Posted Thu 3 July 2008 @ 5:03 p.m. by Sarah

When you consider that 47% of the country’s exports are produced by 2% of the population and the combined capital wealth of five primary cooperatives is larger than the NZX, the necessity for robust and high-speed rural broadband networks is brought into sharp focus. Gen-i rural market manager David Walker says that rural broadband is less about an individual consumer and more about a sector. His presentation rounded off six papers about practical broadband applications on the farm, all of which...

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

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