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:

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.

Interview with Digicel Pacific CEO

This is the transcript of a phone interview conducted recently with Digicel Pacific CEO, Vanessa Slowey. I want to take this opportunity to thank the Digicel leadership for the genuine spirit of cooperation which they extended to me. Their openness and willingness to answer difficult questions is a good indicator of how they view their committment to the Pacific Islands.

1. In which Pacific countries does Digicel operate in at the moment? What countries are next in line for Digicel service?

Digicel currently operates in five countries in the Pacific: Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and Fiji, covering a total population of 7.5 million people, and directly employing more than 1100 people across the region.

Digicel began its Pan‐Pacific roll‐out when it launched Samoa’s first GSM network on November 1^st 2006. The incumbent provider there was operating a mobile service over nine towers on a second‐hand switch. Needless to say, Digicel’s arrival to market has transformed the telecommunications industry in Samoa with an increase of 150% in mobile usage.

On July 24^th 2007, Digicel’s launch in Papua New Guinea marked the end of a fifty year monopoly in the telecommunications market. To date, Digicel has invested US$150 million in Papua New Guinea with plans to invest a further US$340 million over the next three years. The Minister for Finance has directly attributed a growth of 0.07% in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to Digicel’s launch in Papua New Guinea.

Digicel has invested US$150 million in Fiji with ongoing investment throughout and across 300 islands in the group. Prior to Digicel’s launch, the incumbent operators scrambled to get organised as even the threat of Digicel coming to the market scared them. We have witnessed a revolution in Fiji with Digicel’s arrival here, as prices have been driven down and now customers are experiencing real competition for the first time.

New cable down under will lower broadband Internet costs

A new international broadband cable landed on Sydney’s north shore. Stretching 4787km to Guam, the Pipe Networks project, dubbed PPC-1, offers Australian broadband users the promise of significantly lower Internet costs.

IBM Global Study: Telecom Industry CEO Survey

Recently, IBM released a survey of telecom industry CEOs. You can read the full report titled  “The Enterprise of the Future – Telecom Industry Edition.” Download Here (PDF, 270kb). The study reveals findings from interviews conducted with 47 CEOs from telecoms around the globe. It is a great deal of insight about the views of industry insiders on topics like managing change, pursuing effective CSR strategies, and making disruption work for them.

Do monopolies have an interest in thwarting broadband plans?

In recent weeks, this site has focused a great deal on the situation with Telstra in Australia. It’s because this drama has so many dimensions worth analyzing. A key development was the court ruling against Telstra on the improper use of Optus client information. Telstra used information it had access to as wholesale service provider to assist its own retail unit in targetting Optus customers.

These smaller developments are contributing to what is going to be a very dramatic overhaul of telecommunications policy down under.

Optus Chief Paul O’Sullivan on why he thinks Telstra will try to delay roll-out of the new broadband network proposed by the Government:

“The incentives for Telstra to delay a roll-out of a new high-speed broadband network or to try to re-monopolise a high-speed broadband network remains,” he said.

“The fundamental drivers of most companies’ behaviour lie in their underlying economics and in their competitive position. In Telstra’s case that drives them to very notable characteristics.

“First of all, they have a very strong incentive to delay the roll-out of any competitive infrastructure which levels the playing field in services to the home.”

The news from Australia should only make us wary of FINTEL. Is the upcoming announcement in July merely rhetoric of change from their part, when all that’s really being done is securing FINTEL’s competitive position? As wholesale provider of bandwidth to Vodafone, Digicel, Kidanet, etc. they say that market forces and competition will drive down prices. But, looking at what the Optus CEO is saying and the court ruling on the improper use of customer information, it is becoming harder and harder to believe FINTEL.

As developments in Australia prove, without competition in the operation of the underlying network, pricing of services will remain high.

What’s Unwired Fiji thinking? New pricing for business Internet service falls way short of the mark

In an earlier post, Unwired Fiji was praised for deploying a next-generation WiMAX network. A loyal reader forwarded me me an email sent out by Unwired that details new services that take advantage of their new network infrastructure and this news should be greeted with much less enthusiasm. Unwired would have benefitted from waiting for the July 17th announcement of the liberalisation of access to the international gateway to  go to their customers with much more attractive pricing terms.

The company has unveiled two new service offerings for business users. Axxcess is a shared solution aimed at small and medium-scale enterprises. SkyFibre is a dedicated option for larger corporate outfits.