Travellers passing through both the international and domestic terminals at
Brisbane Airport can now access the Internet through 802.11b following
the launch of this new service by Optus last week. The first of many new hotspots
to be launched this year, it signifies an important location in the enduring
land grab for prominent sites around the country.
Overall, Optus has pledged up to $10 million to rolling out 500 hotspots nationwide
within 18 months, targeting airports, main-street cafes, convention centres,
hotel rooms and other locations demanded by their corporate customers.
“We think that once it gets traction in the business community it will start
to flow on to the public”
says Mr Allen Lew, Managing Director of Optus Mobile whose division is driving
Optus’ Wi-Fi initiative.
In what can be been seen as a natural fit, Optus Mobile has picked up Wi-Fi
instead of the company’s ISP divisions. Although having synergies with Optus’
GSM mobile service, Telco industry insiders claim that this was a win for the
mobile division as they were best positioned to pay for the necessary investment.
Wether the mobile division is going to launch last mile services (potentially
in competition with its Internet services) or go beyond key strategic locations
is still doubtful.
According to Mr Lew,
“Obviously the Wi-Fi technology opens up a lot of other areas for us. Whether
we can do this in a regional or suburban area remains to be seen”
A Test Ground For Mobility Services
Wi-Fi is a much simpler mobile enabling technology to roll out compared to 2G
and 3G mobile networks, and for Optus, Wi-Fi has been a relatively low cost entry
point into high-speed wireless data services. According to Optus, Wi-Fi is playing
an important role in determining the demand for these services and consequentially
determining if it’s worth investing further in pervasive high-speed mobile data
services such as 3G.
“It’s an evolutionary process toward 3G” says Mr Lew,
“Optus Wireless connect gives us a feel for really how much demand there is
out there for mobile data services”
Optus is taking the cautious approach when it comes to 3G. A further example
of this is the recent launch of Video MMS, which is also being used to test
demand for mobile video applications, believed to be an important driver for
3G phones.
Mr Lew believes it’s not just the demand side but also the supply side factors
hindering the roll out of 3G. He believes the industry will finally come together
by mid 2004, where he expects attitudes will change and more resources will
be dedicated to next generation networks.
“If you look at the manufacturers of mobile equipment, both infrastructure
and devices, 95% of their R&D effort is still going into 2G networks” according
to Mr Lew.
He further adds,”Its doesn’t make sense for operators like us to
invest in 3G technology, the handsets will be very primitive, the applications
wont have the support of the developers and hence we would be ahead of the technology
curve and that would be a waste of resources.”
In some ways this was a predictable conservative response from Optus who have
demonstrated in the past that they are happy to be a quick market follower.
Optus expects the 3G momentum to increase by mid-2004 and sees itself launching
a service late 2004, early 2005. A trial service running in Sydney is planned
from July to December of this year.
Growth expectations
Optus has high expectations for increased market share in
the business mobility market over the next 12 months, sighting the gap between
its overall market share and its share in business mobility. Despite being in
negotiations with numerous hotspot start-up players, Optus is expecting Wi-Fi
growth to come organically, at least for the time being.
According to Mr Lew, Optus is talking to Azure and a whole range of other providers
about hotpot roaming arrangements. However Mr Lew indicated that currently there
was no need for Optus to make any acquisitions in the same way Telstra did last
year with Skynetglobal.
Reprinted from Australia.Internet.com.
