Pacific Microfinance Week 2009

From Pacific Business News Online, we have news on a conference on Micro-finance. There have been many recent posts on mobile phones and the impact they can have on the delivery of financial services. In the Pacific, it is key to unlocking the potential of our people.  Delivery of these services should be a key benchmark for measuring the success of telecom sector liberalisation.

There is a great deal of interest to make this work in the Pacific:

IFC (International Finance Corporation) is the principal sponsor of Pacific Microfinance Week 2009, a week-long series of events, meetings and gatherings of a range of organisations and individuals that share an interest in promoting the provision of inclusive and sustainable financial services in the Pacific. IFC’s Access to Finance programme forms part of a regional Advisory Services program to improve private sector development in the Pacific. The governments of Australia, Japan, and New Zealand are IFC’s donor partners.

Events like these will hopefully generate interest and bring about movement. Improving access to finance is really one of those key areas that we should seek to strengthen expertise–it really is a key benefit that this technology can provide.

Proliferation of netbooks brings a showdown over Operating Systems

emergence of the netbook brings word of a new OS

Some stories emerge and snowball so quickly, that trying to piece them all together in a coherent manner takes a keen ability to make sense of all the developments. There has been a quite a bit about netbooks, low-cost PC notebook computers, in the news recently. Netbooks are experiencing a tremendous growth in sales world-wide. A previous post had detailed how telcoms in India have started bundling these PC’s with long-term mobile data contracts. In North America, Verizon now offers a sub-$200 netbook for it’s mobile data subscribers.

From GigaOm, news of a new entrant to the market and the dramatic rise in netbook sales:

$5 USB stick promises new life for junk PCs

 

extending the life of older PC's and providing a building block for a better-educated society

Open-source education software developed for the “$100 laptop” can now be loaded onto a $5 USB stick to extend the life of aging PCs and Macs. Run from the USB stick, the software can grant new life to the millions of decrepit PCs that would otherwise  end up in trash heaps in developing countries.

 

Equipping PCs with a new interface and custom educational software, the USB stick project is a spinoff of the One Laptop per Child project. The software consists of the following: 

The Sugar interface was custom-designed for children. The new Sugar on a Stick download features 40 software programs, including core applications called Read, Write, Paint, and Etoys. Many other applications are available for download, most of which emphasize creative collaboration among children. The USB software can boot up an aging computer, or a netbook, and save data from any of the programs.

This is a promising development because the developing world is already a dumping ground for ageing PC’s. Anything that could extend the lives of these PCs so they could serve a function educating the youth is promising news.

On hiatus

 

hang in there? I tried...

This news might come as a shock to those of you who recognize that there’s a human being behind this effort.

 

The time has come for me to go on hiatus. I will wrap up by publishing some last thoughts on the state of liberalisation. I’ll write some posts on frameworks and guideposts that we should look for over the next 2-3 years.

Really, those of you reading this have an obligation to keep pestering the appropriate regulatory authorities to make sure they make this work for all of Fiji.

I could lie to you and say that this blogging break is temporary, but it’s not the way it works. It really does disappoint me to think about no longer working on this site. But, it’s just a great deal of work.

Connect and KIDANET involved in email quarrel

More dissension in the ATH family. Several tipsters forwarded me an email that has recently been circulated by KIDANET support. It appears that Connect is blocking email messages originating from KIDANET users. This is an unfortunate development and one we hope is resolved quickly. The era of liberalisation should be marked by fair competition, not petty displays such as this.

Regulatory authorities must be vigilant against this type of behavior and should have the ability to slap fines and other sanctions in a timely manner. 

Here is the email:

2009 market study confirms functional separation has been good for competition in New Zealand

A new market research report for the telecoms sector in New Zealand has been released on the website companiesandmarkets.com. The title for the publication is “2009 New Zealand – Telecoms and Overview & Analysis” and the executive summary can be found here.

The report provides a great deal of insight into the telecoms sector in New Zealand. It finds that the total New Zealand market grew by 2% to $7.1 billion for the year up to June 2008. BuddeComm predicts that the total New Zealand telco market will grow around 2.3% in 2008/09 and 3.5% in 2009/10, although these growth rates could be up to 1% lower, depending on the severity of the global financial crisis.

New Zealand and the United Kingdom are the only countries in the world that have enacted functional separation as a regulatory tool. Citing many of the same reasons given on this site, the report states emphatically that implementation of this regulatory measure has benefitted users in New Zealand tremendously:

Even Telecom New Zealand has itself admitted that functional separation has already begun to stimulate competition in New Zealand. Existing participants now have the opportunity to extend their activities, and additional competitors now have more opportunity to enter the market which has previously been dominated far too much by Telecom. Smaller competitors now have more attractive wholesale arrangements coming into place and this will put further pressure on prices, which have historically been far too high due to Telecom’s overwhelming market dominance.

In Fiji, it’s FINTEL’s dominance over the international gateway that most closely resembles our New Zealand counterparts. The first stages of sharing under liberalisation are being implemented. However, until the prescription of functional separation is handed down from regulators, we will not reap the kind of benefit that New Zealand is experiencing now. Interestingly, even the incumbent operator in NZ acknowledges that the regulatory measure has been a positive development. How long before we see these steps being taken in Fiji?

ATH companies report on annual earnings

The ATH group of companies reported their earnings for the year ending March 31, 2009. Profits were reported at $52 million, nearly a 20% decline from reported income for the previous year.

The arrival of competition to the mobile sector in October 2008 is responsible for the decline in sales margins. Group sales revenues did show an increase from the previous year by 5.4%, from $269.5 million to $284.2 million.

Digicel awarded license for entry into Nauru

The people of Nauru stand to benefit tremendously  from the announcement of Digicel, the fastest growing telecommunications operator in the Pacific, confirming it has been awarded a GSM licence in the Republic of Nauru. Starting in August, Digicel will launch operations in its 32nd market worldwide. You can read the full announcement here. With a a presennce in Nauru,  Digicel looks to further its commitment  to the development of a true Pan-Pacific network.

Nauru is the 6th Pacific Island nation that Digicel has entered. The others are: Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga.

Some comments from Digicel Pacific CEO, Vanessa Slowey:

Ms. Slowey praised the Government of Nauru’s determination in bringing world-class mobile telecommunications to the people of Nauru and added that, “We have been working alongside the Government of Nauru for the last six months in ensuring that this investment will transform the lives of all Nauruans and we have been enormously encouraged by the sheer drive and enthusiasm of the entire team from Nauru who have worked tirelessly and diligently on this project. Digicel is totally committed to building a hugely successful business with the Government of Nauru and ensuring that everybody in Nauru has access to the service”. 

You can download the full news release from Digicel, here.

African telcos push forward with mobile banking solutions

Mobile banking offers opportunity for financial inclusion of the poor, who have largely been ignored in emerging economies. Presently, more than half the world does not have access to banking services. The mobile phone can serve as a powerful technology for the delivery of financial services to the poor. In the past, we have highlighted efforts of mobile operators like Safaricom in Kenya. 

Around the globe, there is more interest in mobile banking and trying to reach a vast untapped market. Here are excerpts from a good article in the UK Guardian:

High-profile initiatives announced in recent months include South African operator MTN’s plans to roll out mobile money using Fundamo’s technology in 23 countries across Africa and the Middle East and Kuwaiti operator Zain’s plan to extend its Zap money service from Kenya across its network, which spans 24 countries.

Aussie regulator pushes for stricter separation of Telstra units

 

Regulators more willing to put telcos under the lens

Presently attempting to work through a large backlog of articles. The article that is the basis of this post continues to keep the spotlight on the regulatory changes being proposed for Telstra. Australia’s incumbent operator is squarely in the sights of Australian regulators:

Australia’s competition watchdog said imposing a tough structural separation regime on Telstra Corp. (TLS.AU) is the only way to guarantee an equal playing field during the transition to a planned multibillion dollar national broadband network but the company argues there’s no need for such a move.

This calls for looking at regulatory issues comes while Australia attempts to roll out the $43 billion NBN: