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Wireless Federation » archive for 'TelstraClear'

Telecom to pay NZD40mln bill for TSO (New Zealand)

  • September 17th, 2008
  • 1:10 pm

Telecom New Zealand gets NZD40 million (USD26.5 million) bill to cover the cost of the telecommunications service obligation (TSO) for the year to end-June 2006. The country’s Commerce Commission proclaimed that the cost of the TSO for 2005/06 will be NZD58.2 million, with Telecom liable to pay around 69% of this. Besides Telecom, Vodafone and TelstraClear are the main contributors to help subsidise the cost of providing telecoms services in unprofitable rural areas. Recently, the Commission set the final TSO bill for the 2004/05 year at NZD52 million.

M2 and Black and White, gear up to compete with Telecom, Vodafone and TelstraClear (New Zealand)

  • September 8th, 2008
  • 7:19 am

The mobile users will now have a choice of five mobile operators as two new entrants are all set to make a mark. The Australian-listed telco M2 and locally owned start-up Black and White are geared up to join Telecom, Vodafone and TelstraClear in the $2.2 billion market.

M2 and Black and White will be supplying the connections through a MVNO agreement that M2 had struck with Vodafone last year. M2 will be providing back-end administration and billing for both services, but will compete separately.

TelstraClear has sold businesses connections to Telecom’s CDMA network since November, and last week extended its offering to subscribers.

According to M2 chief executive Vaughan Bowen says, the service should launch this month and with it’s target market being the small businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

M2 will not act as a “price slasher”, but will be offering a “more personalised engagement” than Vodafone or Telecom. An unique and unusual feature of M2 is that subscribers can receive a “phone and fly” rebate of up to 15 cents in the dollar on their telco bills, that they can spend on travel products offered through a sister company.

Additionally, there can be tax benefits to this arrangement in Australia if the rebates are classed as a gift from a supplier, but the appeal is mainly “emotive”, says Mr Bowen.

Black and White founder and ex-Telecom staffer Johnathan Eele is also expecting to begin with the promotion of his service within weeks. The British migrant promises to bring a fresh attitude and more “transparency” to the industry.

The 10-person company will be selling phones online and may differentiate by offering post-paid connections with no minimum contract term.

Black and White will bring some new phones to the New Zealand market, including the “light and functional” Nokia 6220c handset.

“I am getting a lot of feedback that people are looking to change, but moving from Vodafone to Telecom and vica-versa just hasn’t seemed to have delivered a lot.”he says, even though there are many options in the country.

Both M2 and Black and White will use the “028″ prefix, but subscribers will be able to port their Vodafone or Telecom phone numbers to either telco.

   

TelstraClear finds North Island partner (New Zealand)

  • April 29th, 2008
  • 2:40 pm

Australian-owned telco TelstraClear has formed a partnership with utility group Northpower which owns a fibre-optic network covering the region of Whangarei on New Zealand’s North Island. TelstraClear will lease capacity on Northpower’s infrastructure to provide voice and high speed broadband services to business customers. TelstraClear is owned by Australia’s Telstra and is New Zealand’s largest alternative wireline operator.

   

 

 

 

 

TelstraClear’s broadband service heads New Zealand ISPs (New Zealand)

  • September 14th, 2007
  • 11:52 am

TelstraClear has the best-performing broadband service in New Zealand, according to technical analysis from broadband monitoring company Epitiro, reports National Business Review. Telecom New Zealand’s (TNZ) network is pulling down the performance of internet service providers (ISPs) who are piggy-backing on it, according to the study. The study analysed the DSL services of the five biggest ISPs in New Zealand. Epitiro carried out tests in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Slingshot was in second place, while Orcon was third. However, some ISPs are not managing their traffic efficiently.

   

TelstraClear tests Telecom’s HSNS (New Zealand)

  • September 3rd, 2007
  • 3:10 pm

Telecom New Zealand has announced that Australian-owned rival TelstraClear has become the first of the country’s alternative operators to test its new wholesale fibre-based high speed network service (HSNS). The pilot, which was launched last week, is testing the connectivity and handover between Telecom’s HSNS and TelstraClear’s own network. Mark Wilson, head of the Enterprise and Government division at TelstraClear, says: ‘This new platform allows us to extend our leading high-end voice and data services to areas beyond our current network reach. It opens up competition, enabling us to offer services to customers who were previously unviable due to network build constraints. We’re pleased to be the first to trial the service, and look forward to bringing it to market shortly.’ HSNS provides access options of 10Mbps, 100Mbps or 1Gbps, delivering speeds from 128kbps up to 1Gbps.

   

 

TelstraClear to launch mobile service (New Zealand)

  • August 13th, 2007
  • 10:18 am

Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) has signed a commercial deal with TelstraClear which will allow TelstraClear to provide a new New Zealand-wide mobile service. The agreement will see TelstraClear launch its own TelstraClear mobile service later this year, providing a range of mobile services, bundles and prices via the TNZ network. TelstraClear will provide details of its mobile service closer to the time of launch. Customers will be able to receive a single bill from one provider delivering all their voice, data and mobile services.

   

TelstraClear third player in mobile market(Australia)

  • August 13th, 2007
  • 8:12 am

TelstraClear is promising big changes to the New Zealand telecommunications market following the signing of a deal to use Telecom’s network for a new nationwide mobile service.

The two companies said an agreement approving the move was signed today by Telecom acting chief executive Simon Moutter and TelstraClear chief executive Allan Freeth.

“This is an opportunity now for us to be, firstly the third entrant into this mobile market, offering a TelstraClear mobile service, rather than a resold one as we did previously,” TelstraClear head of wholesale Raymond O’Brien said.

A new mobile service will pit TelstraClear against Telecom and Vodafone. Previously TelstraClear had a mobile agency agreement with Vodafone, using Vodafone’s network, but a TelstraClear spokeswoman said that under that agreement TelstraClear had little ability to differentiate.

Mr O’Brien said that beyond being able to provide a new mobile service, today’s deal also provided TelstraClear with an opportunity to be the second full service provider in the market, competing with Telecom, offering mobile and a full range of fixed services, including voice and broadband.

TelstraClear, the local subsidiary of Australia’s Telstra Corp, is this country’s second largest provider of fixed line phone and internet services.

“It’s just a great, great change in the market,” Mr O’Brien said of today’s deal.

“We will be providing our own different products, not just a rebrand of something, providing our own pricing packages, structuring them differently, and for large customers in particular, structuring packages which are customised to their requirements.”

TelstraClear did not have to do anything physical to the network to get the new mobile service under way, although it did have the opportunity to provide its own differentiation at a technical level, Mr O’Brien said.
The agreement had been in the pipeline for quite some time, with “furious activity” in the past month.

He would not say what TelstraClear was spending to set up the new service , except that “it’s a lot of money”.

“A lot of it of course is looking at how we address the market, how we manage our own processes for getting people on board,” he said.

“It truly is a separate mobile offering, it just happens to use some of the same infrastructure, which is very efficient.”

For New Zealand it was a “huge step function change”.

Today’s move comes as regulatory pressure mounts for greater competition in the country’s mobile market.

Earlier this month the Commerce Commission said in a draft recommendation on mobile roaming and co-location services that greater regulation was needed to increase competition in the mobile phone market.

“New Zealand and Slovakia are the only OECD countries which do not have three or more mobile operators,” Telecommunications Commissioner Ross Patterson said at the time.

In April, TelstraClear pulled out of a planned $50 million converged mobile/broadband service in Tauranga that was to be the pilot of a wireless network called Unplugged.

   

 

TelstraClear offers broadband boost

  • July 24th, 2007
  • 2:44 pm

TelstraClear has doubled the speed of its two most popular home broadband internet packages, at no additional cost to users. The 5GB monthly plan has seen the peak download speed increased from 2Mbps to 4Mbps, while the peak rate on the 20GB plan has been raised from 4Mbps to 10Mbps. The increases apply to customers of TelstraClear’s InHome cable networks in Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch.

   

 

NZ billing confusion (New Zealand)

  • July 4th, 2007
  • 10:23 am

TelstraClear has denied in which it  suggests that Vodafone New Zealand will take over the management of 30,000 TelstraClear wireless customers. After seven years working together the two operators have failed to sign a new wholesale mobile deal, leaving TelstraClear with no network partner for its mobile resale services. Although both parties stress that the existing 30,000 TelstraClear cellular subscribers will continue to receive services, there is some confusion over which firm will handle the billing and customer management. Vodafone is claiming that it will be producing customer bills, but its rival says it will ‘continue to act as the first point of contact for customers, including billing’. TelstraClear says it is continuing to negotiate over a new wholesale deal for mobile services and is considering a tie-up with Telecom New Zealand now that it is following Vodafone and deploying networks based on GSM technology.

 

   

TelstraClear completes cable upgrade

  • June 19th, 2007
  • 3:43 pm

New Zealand’s largest alternative fixed line operator, TelstraClear, says it has completed a NZD1.2 million (USD900,000) upgrade to its cable networks in Wellington and Christchurch. The upgrade, which will boost peak broadband internet speeds to 25Mbps from the current 10Mbps, has been carried out using equipment supplied by Motorola. A launch date for the new faster services has not been announced. TelstraClear has 70,000 cable TV customers in the two cities, with around 45% of these signed up for broadband internet services, The Dominion Post reports.