Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: broadband

  • The need for speed

    The need for speed

    I’m at the Kickstart Forum for IT journalists on the Gold Coast this weekend talking to various companies and technology thought leaders on the direction of the industry.

    For the forum’s opening keynote, opposition spokesperson and former Optus telecommunications executive Paul Fletcher described his concerns about the Australian government’s National Broadband Network.

    Many of Paul’s objections to the project are based on the failure of former attempts to build telecommunications networks – citing Aussat, the NextGen fibre network, OneTel and international disappointments like WorldCom and Global Crossing.

    The other main concern is that no-one will use it. He cites a Parliamentary committee that where eHealth providers said their service could be adequately provided by a 512Kbit connection, a tiny fraction of the 100Mbit speed promised by the NBN.

    Previous failures aren’t a good indicator of the success or otherwise of the NBN, but what’s more important is what a poor job industry’s doing in explaining how high speed Internet can help their businesses.

    The big challenge for NBN advocates who believe this project is the essential infrastructure of the 21st Century, is to articulate the benefits and potential. We’re not doing a very good job at the moment.

    What’s your view on how high speed Internet can help your business or community?

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  • The death of the short message service

    The death of the short message service

    The New York Times’ Bits Section looks at how in many countries text messaging (SMS) services are declining.

    For telcos, the SMS feature was a happy – and extremely profitable – accident with the Short Message Service feature designed as a control channel for the mobile voice networks.

    The Short Messaging Service cost almost nothing to develop and quickly became a massive profit centre for mobile phone companies.

    Today in markets where smartphones are dominating sales, people are moving many of their communications away from text messages over to Internet based services like email, instant messaging and social media.

    Interestingly, in the United States text messaging still growing although at a slower rate than previously. This makes sense as the US is behind countries that have fully adopted 3G networks and subscribers don’t get the full benefit from a smartphone without a reliable and fast data service.

    For developing countries, we’ll probably see SMS continue to grow as the attractions of a relatively cheap and simple communications channel like text messaging still make sense in markets where data plans are expensive and smartphones scarce.

    As revenues from text messaging drops, we’ll be seeing more telecommunications companies try to replace the lost income with other services. Expect to see more offers for various business and home service bundles and offers to upgrade to the latest phones or packages as providers try to lock profitable customers into cash generating agreements.

    The era of accidental profits for telcos is over, the quest for these companies now is to find how they can maintain profits in an era where data services are commoditising their lucrative product lines.

    For the managers of these companies, the challenge is on to successfully do this – it remains to be seen how well they do in refocusing their businesses.

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  • Business is fine

    Business is fine

    “I don’t need high speed broadband,” snarls the businessman in a country town, “business is fine as it is.”

    A hundred years ago this year the iconic Australian horse coach company Cobb & Co went into its first bankruptcy as it declined from being the dominant transport service of rural Australia.

    Cobb & Co was founded in 1854 by four young Americans in the Victorian gold rush and grew around the expansion of Australia’s rural farming and mining industries. By 1900 the company had 9,000 horses travelling 31,000km (20,000 miles) every week.

    By 1924 Cobb & Co was gone. Displaced by the motor car and restrictive state government rules designed to protect their railways.

    Many businesses, including the management of Cobb & Co, thought the motor car was a fad. No doubt many at the time also thought electricity was dangerous and unnecessary.

    Business worked fine as it was when stagecoaches carried the mail and bullock carts carted the crops, steam engines were fine to power the farms and businesses while the telegraph was just fine for those times when a three month letter to your customers or creditors in London or New York wasn’t quick enough.

    All those businesses went broke. They didn’t go broke fast, it was a slow process until one day owners realised it was all over and then the end came surprisingly quickly.

    That’s where many of us our today – cloud computing might be the latest buzzword, social media might be a distraction for coffee addled children of the TV generation and the global market might be just a way to dump cheap goods and services on gullible consumers – but markets and societies are changing, just as they did a hundred years ago.

    Sure, your business doesn’t need fast Internet. Business is fine.

    Stage coach image courtesy of Velda Christensen at http://www.novapages.com/

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  • Reinventing webinars

    Reinventing webinars

    I’m currently preparing a Smart Company webinar on local search for business. Like most other presenters I prepare for a webinar by putting together a presentation on Keynote or Powerpoint and talk over it while the audience watch and listen over the web.

    That’s pretty typical of most webinars, but I can’t help but think we’re doing this the wrong way by falling into the trap of appliying old techniques to new technologies.

    In most industries we fall for this problem; when the motor car came along, our forefathers applied the ways of horse and carts to the new technology, going as far as calling them “horseless carriages”.

    The movie industry is probably the best example of this. When movies first appeared, producers and writers applied theatrical techniques and it took a decade or so for them to figure out how to work best with the new media, then they had to relearn for talkies, followed by the arrival of TV and now the industry is adapting to Internet streaming.

    In many ways we’re still in the “silent movie” phase of online presentations; we’re learning through trial and error what techniques work while inventing new tricks that take advantage of a personal screen.

    So that gives rise to the question, how do we adapt our presentations that are designed for being presented to a room full of people to a more intimate online medium?

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  • ABC Nightlife: The business web revolution

    ABC Nightlife: The business web revolution

    The March Nightlife technology segment looks at how the web is changing business as consumers go online and cheap, easy to use tools make it easier than ever to set up an effective Internet presence.

    The podcast of the program is available for download or listening to from the Nightlife website. Some of the programs and online services we refer to on the program are listed below.

    Last year’s Sensis e-business report found over two thirds of Australians had made a purchase online. Increasingly, customers are using the web to find shops and services rather than the phone directory or local classified adverts that local businesses have relied upon in the past.

    At present only half of all businesses have a website despite customers using the net as their main way of researching purchases and finding local merchants. This is partly because of the cost, time and complexity involved in setting up a web presence.

    Today it’s possible to set up a free website in half an hour and be listed on the main local search engines within an hour.  On the March ABC Nightlife Tony and Paul looked at how to get online and use these tools.

    Aspects we discussed include;

    • Can you really build a web page for free
    • What’s replacing Yellow Pages
    • How do businesses list on these services
    • Are they a substitute for a web page
    • Do consumers actually use local search
    • How to remove Norton 360
    • Protecting yourself online
    • Dust build up in systems
    • The next version of Windows

    Our next spot is on April 28. Visit the events page or subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date with other ABC segments we might be doing.

    Useful Links

    Some of the software and webpages we discussed on the program included.

    Getting Australian Business Online
    Adding your website to Google Listings
    Listing your business with local search
    Norton 360º Removal Tool
    Windows Scripting Host (for Windows XP)
    Malwarebytes virus and spyware removal tool

    If you have any suggestions for our April 24 show, please contact us. We love to hear your ideas and comments.

    If you are in Sydney, our Web for Beginners seminar still has spaces available. In three hours, you’ll have your business online with an effective Internet presence.

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