Currently the New Zealand government is considering a similar move to that implemented for BT in the UK, where the company is forced to separate into three separate entities; a network company that owns and maintains the physical copper and fibre networks, a wholesale business, and a retail business. Ownership of the network company in particular would have to be different, and could possible include current competitors, who all have a common interest in the underlying infrastructure available in the country as everyone has to use this.

The government is saying this is essential to achieve the wider adoption of cheap, fast broadband within New Zealand, which I agree is essential to the economy and in particular for my industry. Telecom is saying, that they had already planned to invest $1.5 billion NZD in upgrading the core network, however, if it is likely that they will be forced to sell this business to competitors or back to the government, how can they proceed with plans to invest such a large chunk of shareholder funds.

Telecom have a point. The government privatised this business and now wants to break it up and potential buy it back. It could all be a ploy, as many suggest, to force Telecom into self regulating themselves and forcing some action rather than them dragging their feet. Shareholders have already had to take the hit from the failure of the AAPT purchase in Australia, and now are being asked to sign off on a $1.5 billion spend, which may get plucked out of the company in the very near future.

You also have to wonder what would be the costs involved in splitting up the company and the potential disruption that it would cause to operations and customer service. It is already a nightmare dealing with Telecom for broadband where you have to deal with multiple departments and then get passed through to Xtra, who then tell you that it is a Telecom problem. Imagine a scenario where there is a retail ISP who buys from a wholesale company that buys network services from a network company….The BT model is being heralded as a success by some in the UK, but Telecom claim that it is only 2 years in, and that there are cracks starting to show. Most Britains regard BT as a nightmare company to deal with, but that is essentially the same for nearly every market where there is a strong previously monopolistic SOE incumbent telco, Australians say exactly the same about Telstra.

Personally, I’m very torn. Cheaper, faster broadband is essential to New Zealand’s future, however, the capitalist in me feels very uncomfortable about the government taking such a direct role in making this happen. At the same time, Telecom has proven time and time again that it will abuse the undeniably strong position it has in this market.

I hope that the tough talk from the government will illicit a strong commitment from Telecom and avoid direct intervention. The question is, if this happens will Telecom follow through or just do enough to get the government to back off and then start cutting back investment once the heat is off.

Technorati Tags: telecom new zealand

Well, it isn’t really the question for me as my business is largely about selling our clients on the benefits of business blogs or at least actively engaging the blogging community.

I still encounter resistance on almost a daily basis though. Here are the frequently asked questions and concerns that get posed to me when recommending a blog strategy:

What if a staff member posts something on the blog that is commercially sensitive?

A valid concern, however, what happens if a staff member sent something commercially sensitive by email? Are you going to monitor and read every single message they send out? Many, many people are unaware of the intensely insecure nature of email. Standard email messages are completely unencrypted and exceptionally easy to intercept. A single email message will generally get copied into log files on numerous mail servers around the world. The little button in Outlook that lets you recall a message, is essentially a ruse. You can’t actually recall or delete an email after it is sent.

My point? You have to trust your staff to be sensible the same way you trust them with a host of other mediums that can be used to communicate with the world. You can always have an internal blog or wiki if it is to be used for highly sensitive information, that’s what we do.

What if nobody posts anything?

You need to sell blogging to the people whom you want to be involved in the company and have some champions who will lead the way. One thing I noticed is that the guys in my team would send interesting links and information they had found to the all staff email list. I always just reply and tell them to blog it instead. I think all companies will be pleasantly surprised at the depth and breadth of knowledge available within their people. To be able to easily harness and share this knowledge is so incredibly powerful.

What is someone posts a critical comment?

This requires a complete shift in corporate thinking. Traditionally companies would shy away from publicly embarrassing issues and retain expensive PR spin doctors to deal with issues like this. I’ve previously posted about how Dell, in the face of growing customer dissatisfaction and criticism from the media, has embraced blogs and other Web 2.0 initiatives to try and create a far greater level of transparency with their market. There’s is an excellent case study of how conversations and dialogue are better than dealing with criticism in media that you have no control over. If you read my post on CEO blogs, I conclude that the most important thing is to deal with the comments and keep your blog active rather than shy away from it if things are going the way you want. Charles Dunstone at The Carphone Warehouse learnt that the hard way.

Another example, is low cost operator Southwest Airlines in the US, who currently have an unassigned seating policy on their flights. They posted on their blog that they were thinking of moving to assigned seating. They were overwhelmed with comments in response from their customers. The verdict was undeniably that this would be a “New Coke” scale tragedy if they were to proceed. All this within a matter of hours.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, blogging in the business environment, especially if you are the technology or communications business, should be a part of your marcomms strategy. If you are targeting the US market, then you should take this even more seriously. If you look at the number of Fortune 500 tech companies with blog strategies, the list is long and distinguished.

Technorati Tags: blogs, cgm, consumer generated media

Neuf Cegetel in France has just started offering 50 Mbps fibre optic broadband connections for about 30 Euros (approximately 54 NZD/49 AUD/20 GBP/40 USD). Sweet.

I’ve just moved house and looking to move broadband providers and the best I can get is still the old HDSL. If I’m lucky, I might get 10Mbps downstream connection for roughly the same money. I know prices have come down over the years but it is still a very underwhelming offering out there. There are virtually no new technological options in the last 8 years, apart from some wireless providers that just don’t work (Woosh).

I do have a Vodafone Vodem and connection to their 3G network and was considering if I could just have this at home, however, the connect/disconnect thing still feels too much like going back to dial up (which it is effectively) and it is not that easy to share the connection with other computers.

As compelling as Neuf Cegetel’s offering is, I don’t think it will make me move to France, but I do hope that other countries will follow suit soon. I’m going to give Xnet a try as it has been highly recommended to me by a few people now.

We’re not doing too badly, spare a thought for the poor broadband deprived people of India who are still paying about $500 USD per month for home broadband limited to about 256K.

Thanks to the all-knowing GigaOM for the Neuf Cegetel story.

Google has announced its free in-home wireless broadband service.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA)™, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users’ plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system.

Despite all their success, it is reassuring to see that Google has a sense of humour, although they are taking a dig at a competitive bid for their municipal WiFi service in San Francisco. GigaOM has the details.

Technorati Tags: google, tisp