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Casting off to surf the airwaves

November 26, 2003
(Financial Times)

By phone and internet from Auckland, Alain Bourgogne deals around the world in New Zealand forest products and ships to carry them. But if he wanted a broadband connection to speed up his business, he was tied by wires to the phone system.

Then a few weeks ago he cast off from Telecom New Zealand. He signed up with Woosh, a start-up company that launched a wireless broadband service in September. Now he enjoys a high speed connection and mobility at a lower price than wireline broadband.

"It's a great convenience," he says as he taps away at his laptop on the patio of his home. Working as a log trader and ship broker, he regularly sends and receives 1Mb (megabyte) e-mails. Hefty documents with ships' specifications, pictures or bills of lading are the lifeblood of his business.

"We live by the telephone so communications are an important expense for us," says Mr Bourgogne. Costs have fallen thanks to Woosh and will fall further when the carrier starts to offer voice-over-the-internet via its broadband service.

Mr Bourgogne paid NZDollars 399 (Dollars 240) for a modem and pays NZDollars 65 a month for a 250 kilobit per second (kbps) connection and unlimited use. Woosh also offers a range of faster services at higher prices.

By comparison, Telecom sells under the Jetstream brand a range of ADSL broadband services over its wireline network. Speeds range from 125kpbs to 2mpbs, but price plans are volume-based so heavy users pay extra.

Jetstream is available on some 85 per cent of phone lines in the country and Telecom will supplement that with a wireless version -but only for fixed installations.

For New Zealanders who wanted mobile data connections, the choice pre-Woosh was Telecom's or Vodafone's cellphone networks. But they deliver speeds only up to about 80kpbs, barely 50 per cent faster than a dial-up wireline, and charges are relatively high.

While Woosh is reshaping the work practices of mobile business people, like Mr Bourgogne, it is still limited geographically. It covers only 35 per cent of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city with a population spread widely around its extensive coastline and hills.

However, coverage will double by the year end and will start in Wellington and Christchurch, the country's second and third cities, early next year.

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