IRD Cool Vodaphone uncool when did it go so very very wrong?
Category Archives: telecom
iPhone – passe already in Australia?
I hear from Sydney that the iPhone is becoming a bit, well, common in the tech community. This before a release date has even been announced in Australia. Personally I’m a fan of only buying Apple goodies within days of launch date – to eliminate any concerns that, say, mac fanboy Rowan gets some Apple …
The advance of VOIP
Via the economist this chart and shows VOIP taking about 20% of all international call minutes for 2006. Amazingly though regular international phone calls grew 10% between 2005 and 2006. I wonder how much was driven by falling prices, in turn driven by cheap and free VOIP.
The mobile web is irrelevant
Deserving of a separate post I think – those mobile browser stats show one important thing: Nobody cares about the web on mobile phones. The top 3 mobile browsers added up to a paltry 0.16% of web traffic, which for most Websites is approximately nothing. Of course if you are Google it’s a lot of …
Why the iPhone matters: Mobile internet that works
It’s simple – just look at the stats. After just 5 months on the US market, the iPhone browser is showing a 0.09% browser traffic share. (and that’s with 2.5G not 2G) Compare that with Windows Mobile devices – rating 0.06% of the market, with about 14 times the number of handsets out there. Why? …
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Goodbye payphones…
At least in chunks of the USA. AT&T is getting rid of them by the end of next year. The USA had 2.6m payphones in 1998 and about 1m now. Apparently, the story goes, AT&T (or someone else) commissioned McKinsey years ago to determine the demand for mobile phones. The answer that came back was …
Telecom – believing marketing trumps reality
It may not actually be an iPhone, but Telecom is inviting comparison between its latest handset, the Okta Touch, and the much-hyped Apple handset. We don’t have to see the Okta to know the answer to this one. I watched the video. TVNZ interviews David Gray (Grey?) Telecom’s Head of Consumer Marketing, which is just …
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Telecom’s $1.4 billion investment
It’s great news. Score plus one for Paul Reynolds, who is making all the right moves as he embarks on the Telecom turnaround. I’m running on the promised ADSL2+ here in Perth, and it is fast enough for most purposes, with an upgrade path to 20 MB per second ahead for TCNZ. Sadly – that …
Legal unlocked iPhones
Perhaps available only in French, but it seems iPhones will have to be sold in unlocked form in France, to comply with an excellent French law. Unlocked: tick 3G: not yet. Still time to kill until next year then.
Fast Broadband is here – in Perth that is
Finally I have broadband again. It took Perth based iiNet about a week to arm-twist Australian monopolist Telstra into connecting me. Their communications and service (24/7 help desk) has been faultless – which is stunning in this industry. iiNet uses ADSL2, and here’s what I get: From me at home in Perth to a local …
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NZInstitute BB report: Telepresence growth benefits are limited
That’s the second part of the tree on page 7 of the NZ Institute report. It shows total annual benefits of $165-$335m in increased exports from decent broadband allowing better telepresence. Telepresence I guess is defined by the authors as basically video conferencing with big screens and higher resolution. To work it out the authors …
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The NZ Institute report – the benefits of broadband
If you are frustrated as hell at the ponderous pace of broadband adoption and speeds in New Zealand, then the New Zealand Institute report: DEFINING A BROADBAND ASPIRATION: HOW MUCH DOES BROADBAND MATTER AND WHAT DOES NEW ZEALAND NEED? is essential reading. The presentation is in classic McKinsey style, which is an acquired taste, but …
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How to buy Apple iPhones in NZ
{update – From July 11th2008 you can now just go to a Vodafone store and get an iPhone 3G. And a contract.} Want to buy an iPhone in NZ? Well – the quickest way to get your hands on one is down on Queen street at Parallel Imports. You can also buy them online from …
N90 and iPhone…
If you are looking for news on the Apple 4th generation “N90 iPhone” then try: A Chinese employee committed suicide after one of 16 prototypes dissappeared: mystateline.com China Stakes has the best article. Sun graduated from university just last year, that the iPhone is called the iPhone N90, that Sun was in charge of transmission …
UK iPhone – what to do in NZ?
So the iPhone is in the UK – with O2. The interesting thing is that, like the USA, the iPhone is not coming with any 3G high speed mobile internet. Instead Apple and O2 have signed a deal with The Cloud, giving iPhone users free WiFi access at 7,500 UK locations. We don’t have that …
Lance Wiggs 