Wireless Auckland

Auckland City Council has launched a city wi-fi broadband service today covering seven zones as it strives to help stimulate business activity.

The service covers Aotea Square, Karangahape Road, Ponsonby, Remuera, and Parnell as well as the Viaduct Basin and Westhaven.

Users can access the wireless service at speeds of up to two megabits per second for $3 per hour, $6.50 per day or $30 per week.

This is good news since accessing the Internet in Auckland has always been a bit of a pain. The cost of a monthly data card would not justify its use, so I have relied on friends to access their broadband bandwidth when in the 'City of Sails'.

I think though that Auckland might just have missed a trick. Given the investment in the set-up, they could have launched this as a free service. I am not personally too concerned about 3 bucks, but imagine the PR benefit of profiling Auckland globally as an international city with world class (free) wireless infrastructure.

OK, I'll just imagine.

The Ferrit Dies

Telecom is closing its online shopping venture Ferrit with the loss of 24 full-time jobs. Ferrit never turned a profit and Telecom is not commenting on whether industry estimates of a $30 million investment in the venture are correct or not.

I have always had my doubts about this particular venture. It reminded me very much of some of British Telecom's (BT) first forays into Internet ventures at the back-end of the 1990's. Most were similarly fated.

The reality is that there are much more focused, experienced and established e-commerce players around. Think Amazon, TradeMe and EBay. They all have proven business models and offer users far more than a simple aggregated online shopping mall.

Telecom's decision will enable them to focus management resources on the key infrastructure issues that they and New Zealand face. The decision to terminate the Ferrit is a good one.

Broadband Today

[Updated: 4th June - An interesting observation in today's New Zealand Herald. Sachio Semmoto, Japanese telecoms entrepreneur advised Helen Clark 3 years ago that New Zealand's broadband service was 'pitiful'. At the recent Japan New Zealand Partnership Forum, he said; "New Zealand will simply get killed if it does not tackle these issues swiftly and build a speedy information highway to connect to nations with which it wants to do business".

Agree. Hats doffed to Sachio.]

The value of the New Zealand telecommunications market fell by 1 per cent in the March quarter, despite subscriber growth in broadband and mobile. Telcos were finding it increasingly difficult to increase revenues, market analyst Tim Shepheard of independent research and consultancy company IDC said today.

Shepheard said the New Zealand telecom's industry continued to be under incredible political and public pressure to deliver cost effective broadband and mobile services to both consumers and businesses. "Unfortunately for service providers, subscriber growth is not being met with comparable revenue growth. The persistent concern of how to drive revenue from broadband services is an ongoing issue for telcos across the board," he said.

Maybe I have some news for Mr Shepheard and the telcos. My broadband speeds are so variable that I have almost given up expecting any consistency. That impacts on my own assumptions about what I can and cannot do with broadband. Some of the services that I might subscribe to, simply wouldn't operate in this environment.

My message is simple. Xtra speed could generate Xtra revenue.

0161 44

New Zealand Calling...

It's the nature of my job that I have to engage with the UK and India outside normal working hours. (Unless 6.30am - 11.00pm are regarded as such).

Normally I try and communicate via Skype. Most of may regular contacts have now set this up as their default standard comms for me. There are times however when I might be on the road or be void of laptop, in which case I have to make a landline 2 landline call. It's at these moments that I revert to Telecom's 0161 service.

If you dig deep enough into the small print, you can find that this service exists. It costs nothing to set up and is only available for international calls. Dial 0161 before the country prefix, instead of the widely advertised 00, and your call tariff collapses. 0161 44 (UK) costs 7 cents per minute. That's cheaper than a standard domestic call from Tauranga to Auckland. It's the same rate to the USA.

Given my international call traffic, it does make a difference. Hopefully, this tip can help you.

Broadband Xtra

Hear ye...hear ye..

John Key has announced that National would invest up to $1.5 billion as part of a "fibre to the homes" fast broadband network. The news is welcome. Apparently, the investment would be made alongside additional private sector investments, according to this announcement placed on YouTube today.

The devil though is in the detail. Over the coming weeks, a little more of that would be helpful.

Costa Wireless

I like coffee. But not this much....

Finding free wi-fi access in London has been a challenge. BT OpenWorld, The Cloud and T-Mobile seem to have tied up most of the major hotels and railway stations. And so charge. And Mayor Ken has not yet splashed out on a City-wide public wi-fi access network.

So I have had to take refuge is a select number of Costa Coffee joints around the City. Starbucks in London seem to be pretty much tied up with T-Mobile. Access costs 5 GBP (approx $NZ14 per hour or part thereof). Plus of course the coffee. Some branches of McDonald's seem to have signed up with The Cloud providing free access. The thought of a discarded Big Mac (2 for 1 at present!) finding its way into my keyboard is just too much however. So Costa it has been.

Great coffee and free wi-fi access at selected branches. Definitely worth visiting when you are in London. Just go easy on the lattes though.

Digital Strategy 2.0 Summit

The Digital Strategy 2.0 Summit has been held this week in Auckland. I simply did not have time to attend, but the need and urgency to address New Zealand's woeful broadband performance is real.

Once again, I accessed the Online Telegraph this morning and was confronted by confirmation of this. The Business Page inline video clearly knew where I was from.

'This Player requires a faster connection to enable smooth playback of video.

The connection speed detected will cause a potentially unviewable experience'.

I am signed up to Telecom's Broadband service. Says it all really.

Vodafone Roaming

I can feel the pain

Driving back from Hamilton this afternoon, I received a txt from Vodafone NZ. It advised that important changes to roaming changes had been made and to find out more about 'Traveller our zone' prices, I could freecall 495.

'Roaming Charges'. I have been stung before. Badly. Traveling offshore necessitates some mobile use. And this is when Vodafone strike.

Skype helps enormously when connected to a PC. In the UK, I use 'pay as you go' SIM cards. In India that is not possible. You need to be a resident to purchase a SIM card. So the roaming charges kick in and they hurt.

I have not yet called freecall 495. I need a strong drink first. I'll pour it now.