2018 / ISSUE 7Championing better broadband for New Zealand

SUPER SHARP IMAGES

4K is a TV revolutionTRUSTPOWER

Coming at broadband from a different angle

BEYOND DUMB PIPES

How service providers add value

B R O U G H T T O Y O U B Y

The challengerSusie Stone has made a career of getting things done in smaller,

more nimble telcos

Contents 2018 / ISSUE 7

6COVER STORY Vocus Communications GM Susie Stone talks about life at the sharp end of the telecommunications

business where challenging the bigger players is a matter of survival

12

SPARK TALKS RUGBY WORLD CUP RIGHTSSome of your questions answered14 TrustpowerNew Zealand’s fourth largest broadband company comes from the energy sector. Chief executive Vince Hawksworth talks about how Trustpower became a major broadband brand

18 Adding valueService providers need to do more than sell dumb pipes, we look at how DTS and Megatel add value22 Network servicesNapier-based Now installs network-in-a-cloud services for Hawkes Bay councils

REGULARS

1 EditorialTough competition means service providers must innovate to thrive2 In BriefScammers, fibre studies and TV bundles

24Street artPaul Walsh made a career from painting curb-side cabinets 26Connected homeThere’s more to residential broad-band than Netflix and Xbox Live

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SMART SPEAKERSVoice-activated artificial intelligence has arrived 30Internet safetyAbusive online behaviour is wide-spread, how are we tackling it?

RANTMichael Wigley on how Rugby World Cup Rights set the scene for future battles

5

94K TVImages emblazoned on blades of grass and much more – a revolution in television is coming

28

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2018 / Issue 7

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Editor Bill Bennett

Chorus Editorial Consultants Ian Bonnar, Steve Pettigrew, Holly Cushen

Contributors Rob O’Neill, Scott Bartley, Heather Wright, Hadyn Green, Johanna Egar, Holly Cushen, Michael Wigley

Senior Account Director LauraGrace McFarland

Senior Designer Julian Pettitt

Account Executive Paige Fleming

Publisher Ben Fahy

On the cover Photography by Robin Hodgkinson, art direction by LauraGrace McFarland, design by Julian Pettitt

Published by ICGPO Box 77027, Mt AlbertAuckland 1350, New Zealandwww.icg.co.nz

The Download is championed by Chorus PO Box 632, Wellington 6140www.chorus.co.nz

The contents of The Download are protected by copyright. Please feel free to use the information in this issue of The Download, with attribution to The Download by Chorus New Zealand Limited. Opinions expressed in The Download are not necessarily those of the publisher or the editor. Information contained in The Download is correct at the time of printing and while all due care and diligence has been taken in the preparation of this magazine, the publisher is not responsible for any mistakes, omissions, typographical errors or changes to product and service descriptions over time.

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Connect with usFacebook.com/ChorusNZ Twitter/ChorusNZChorus NZ Limited on LinkedIn

FROM A CUSTOMER point of view, New Zealand’s broadband has never been better. It’s faster, more reliable and less expensive than ever before. Unmetered broadband running at near gigabit speeds costs less than we paid for slow, capped Jetstream plans in 1999. Every month New Zealand data traffic peaks at a new high. We are consuming more and more data.

This is the good news in the March 2018 IDC report on the state of the New Zealand broadband market. Spark sponsored the report. IDC says Ultra-fast Broadband and the Rural Broadband Initiative deliver "world leading broadband infrastructure”. It says the New Zealand telecommunications market is in a state of revival from the consumer’s perspective and “this opens many new opportunities for the industry and for New Zealand Inc”.

There are other positives, but the rest of the IDC report is mainly downbeat. At times it is gloomy. It turns out that what’s great for the customer, isn’t good for telcos and internet service providers. At least not all telcos.

IDC says: “In the fixed retail market, rising input costs and ease of entry into the broadband market puts at risk the fine balance between regulatory influence and having the space and room for players to thrive. Heavy price-based competition is devaluing the ability to monetise data.”

In a nutshell, the market is growing, but tough competition means there’s not a lot of profit. That’s because there are 90-odd companies all chasing the same revenue pool. Broadband has become, for the most part, a commoditised market. Some, not all, RSPs act as if price is their only competitive option.

When they do this, they then attempt to repair margins by lowering operational costs. That can mean reducing customer service. If they get this wrong, they're in a vicious downward cycle. It can be brutal.

There are other ways to make broadband pay. In this issue of The Download we talk to smaller retail service providers who

have found ways to add value. The biggest players, Spark and Vodafone, use

streaming video to win and keep customers. The added value justifies better margins. Vocus added electricity to its product mix. There, the value lies in getting more from the customer database and billing system. Trustpower comes at the same strategy from the opposite starting point. Broadband helps it keep customers.

Smaller RSPs, like Now, in Hawkes Bay, and DTS offer managed services. While Megatel offers television and power. For these companies, broadband is the starting point, not the end game.

Bill Bennett

RSPs look beyond broadband

The Download | Editorial

"Heavy price-based competition is

devaluing the ability to monetise data"

International Data CorporationMARCH 2018 REPORT

2

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In brief

Telcos join forces to fight scammers Spark, Vodafone, 2degrees and the New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF) now swap information on phone scammers. In April, the TCF released a draft code that should help carriers identify scam calls to mobiles and landlines, and then take action.

The TCF’s CEO, Geoff Thorn, says: “The Scam Calling Prevention Code drafted by the TCF reinforces and standardises the processes already in place, to help the industry react more quickly to any incidence of fraud reported by the public, and block calls from numbers used by scammers. The draft code also provides for sharing information with third parties where it is appropriate.”

The TCF developed the code in collaboration with 2degrees, Spark, Symbio Networks, TNZI (formerly Telecom New Zealand International), Vocus and Vodafone. It aims to have a consistent approach towards identifying, verifying and blocking scam calls. The idea is that this will cut the number of scam calls consumers get while not interfering with most legitimate calls.

Thorn says scammers are becoming more sophisticated. “Often they have access to personal information obtained through third-party sources and may use advanced systems to make it appear as though they are calling from a genuine New Zealand phone number. The telco industry can only do so much to monitor what phone services are being used for,” he says.

NO SALE FOR VOCUS’ NZ BUSINESS Vocus has failed to find a buyer willing to pay the asking price for its New Zealand business. The company operates a number of brands here: CallPlus, Slingshot, Orcon and Flip are the company’s main telco and broadband assets. There is also the network business formerly known as FX Networks, as well as data centres, 2talk, a voice-over-IP service provider and Switch, an energy retailer.

Unofficially, the company was said to be looking for A$500 million. It needs this to pay off the cost of acquisitions made during its rapid expansion. The company has debts of more than A$1 billion. Vocus says it has now reached an agreement with its lenders to extend its existing debt.

The New Zealand businesses were all picked up during this expansion. Most were acquired in 2015, when Vocus merged with M2, a rival Australian telco

that had, at the time, recently acquired CallPlus, Slingshot, Orcon and Flip.

Vocus set itself a tight sale deadline. When the sale was announced last October, Vocus said it wanted the deal to be completed by June 2018.

Given that some of the most likely buyers would face lengthy regulatory approval times, that reduced the number of possible candidates. Spark publicly expressed an interest, but was stymied by the need for approval. There was little chance of the company getting clearance in time for Vocus' deadline.

Other potential buyers identified included Tauranga-based Trustpower and 2degrees.

Vodafone also off the block: In April, Vodafone pulled back on plans to float its New Zealand business.

Hawaiki cable lands in American Samoa The Hawaiki Submarine Cable has landed a spur from its trans-Pacific submarine cable in American Samoa. The cable, which runs from Australia’s east coast to Oregon in the US, via New Zealand, has been designed to include branching units so Pacific Island states can connect to the internet. There are also links for New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga. American Samoa is the first to connect to the network.

In May, the company announced the last spur of its network was complete and that the system was on schedule to begin operating in June.

2018 / Issue 7

3The Download | In brief

Vodafone to bundle basic TV service Vodafone customers with fibre or HFC plans will get the company’s new ‘TV Intro’ product as part of their package. Vodafone TV Intro is a cut-down version of the company’s wider streaming service. It offers 18 free-to-air channels.

TV Intro will include on-demand apps from local broadcasters such as ThreeNow, TVNZ On Demand and WatchMe. Vodafone says customers will be able to switch between viewing on their television, tablet or phone.

Vodafone also announced prices for its television products. The Starter package adds $25 to the price of the basic broadband plan, while the Sport and Entertainment packages each cost $55 a month more than the basic broadband plan. The Premium package includes both Sport and Entertainment and costs $95 more than the basic broadband package.

The move can be seen as a response to Spark offering its Lightbox streaming television service to its broadband customers. The difference is that Vodafone TV Intro also serves as a lure to the company’s more expensive plans.

Meanwhile, Spark has upgraded Lightbox and moved closer to Netflix. A year ago, Spark offered one year’s Netflix at no cost for customers signing a two-year

unlimited broadband contract. The deal has a nominal value of $180 a year but is in line with the price premium the company charges compared with rival internet service providers.

In March, Spark renewed this offer and added six months of no-cost Netflix for customers signing a one-year contract. Customers already signed to the two-year

contract deal will get an extra six months of Netflix at no extra cost.

Spark has also launched Lightbox Movies and now offers a Premium version. The on-demand, pay-per-view movie service is open to all online users. The Lightbox Premium service lets users download movies to play on their mobile devices. It means higher quality on low bandwidth connections.

IDC charts telecom sector’s profitless growth IDC’s State of New Zealand Broadband report says that although the market is growing, telcos struggle to make a profit. The report questions the sector’s sustainability, then it goes on to say New Zealand is a world leader in connectivity.

New Zealand’s total telecommunications revenue increased 1.1 percent in 2017. It grew from $5.36 billion to $5.42 billion.

IDC warns: “This growth disguises the true story of a market that is displaying extreme price pressure and competition in both fixed and mobile. ARPUs (average revenue per user) are either flat or declining in both broadband and mobile. In the broadband space, retail service providers continue to compete away any chance of strong, sustainable ARPU growth.”

While competition means good times for customers, costs are rising and margins are falling. IDC says many in the telecommunications industry question whether retail broadband can be profitable on its own. The report says: “The UFB initiative has commoditised fibre in New Zealand. Consumer fibre plan prices have plummeted from averaging over NZ$200 per month in 2013 to around NZ$85 per month as at February 2018.”

IDC says companies will find it easier to get more customers through acquisition than to continue offering deals in a cut-throat market. It also says there is an increasing dependency on bundling services with broadband to create a profitable overall package.

2DEGREES CLOSES 2G NETWORK March saw the last 2G cellular call on the 2degrees network. The company closed the service and intends to re-use the freed-up bandwidth to bolster its 4G network.

At the time of the switch-off, the company still had a few thousand users on 2G, although, it says, many of these would have been back-up phones. The 2G handsets will no longer work.

Vodafone still has a 2G network. The company says it will continue running it for the foreseeable future. Spark never had a 2G network; Telecom NZ used the rival CDMA technology. It closed this after its 2009 move to the XT network.

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4 The Download | In brief

Chorus tests broadcast- over-fibre Chorus has begun testing a direct television broadcasting service on its fibre network. The service has the capacity to deliver high-definition television using 4K, or even 8K, material. The broadcast service will use a second port on the optical network terminal that is installed in homes. It operates in parallel with any broadband services that are in use and does not affect them.

Chorus says it is likely to be used by local broadcasters wanting to offer a higher quality service. At the moment, broadcasters either need to partner with ISPs or develop their own internet apps.

InternetNZ restructures InternetNZ has merged with the .nz registry business, NZRS, and reorganised its leadership team. The combined operation, which now also includes the Domain Name Commission, will be headed by Jordan Carter. Carter was previously in charge of InternetNZ.

Former InternetNZ deputy chief executive Andrew Cushen will become outreach and engagement director in the new organisation. Community programme director Ellen Strickland moves to become group policy director.

Dave Baker, previously chief technology officer at NZRS, will become technology services director, while Sebastian Castro will remain as chief scientist.

DUNEDIN’S CITY-WIDE WI-FI COMPLETE With the opening of the site at Macandrew Bay, Dunedin’s free city-wide Wi-Fi network is complete. The network operates 15 sites across the city. Spark built the network, which was established by the Dunedin City Council. The company says 50,000 people use the network each month. The users have 900,000 sessions and download more than 5000GB.

“Is 5G really going to make us all taller, more attractive and richer? Probably not. It’s an evolution. It’s called LTE which stands for long-term evolution for a reason. It consolidates low-power stuff for things with the high-throughput, low-latency stuff for mission critical solutions. It is trying to be a radio network that is all things to all people.”HUGH UJHAZY, IDC Asia-Pacific lead for telecommunications and internet-of-things speaking at an event in Auckland in May, discussing next generation access around the world.

2018 / Issue 7

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Commerce Commission launches fibre study The Commerce Commission is studying fibre services. Telecommunications Commissioner Stephen Gale says the study aims to give the commission a better understanding of providers’ networks, fibre services, network operations and business practices.

The study will pave the way for future regulation of fibre services.

Gale says: “Starting this study now, under our market studies power in the Telecommunications Act, gives us a head-start on gathering information from Chorus and the local fibre companies. We expect the information about fibre services to be useful regardless of the form that regulation might take.”

It comes at a busy time for the Commerce Commission’s telecommunications researchers. The fibre study joins the commission’s studies into mobile markets and backhaul services.

SPARK'S QRIOUS UNIT GETS NEW BOSS, NEW FOCUS Nathalie Morris, currently general manager for data-powered marketing at Qrious, will take over as CEO following the departure of David Leach. Leach replaced founding CEO Ed Hyde 18 months ago. The company says it has changed its strategy to focus more on customer intelligence and engagement.

Research data traffic climbing fast Research and Education Advanced Network NZ (REANNZ) says it is seeing strong traffic growth. In the last quarter of 2017 its members shared 445TB of research and education data, that’s three times the volume shared a year earlier. During the same quarter it hit a record for what the organisation calls “international commodity traffic”. At 3918TB, it was up almost a petabyte — that’s 1,000 terabytes — on the previous year.

Online crime cost New Zealand $5 million in 2017 The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) says online criminals stole $5.3 million in New Zealand last year. That’s just the money we know about. CERT admits this figure could be the tip of the iceberg. It says many breaches go unreported with publicly notified incidents

being only a fraction of the total. The team’s records show that the public reported 1131 significant cyber-breaches in 2017. Most of the reported losses were in the fourth quarter of the year. CERT recorded 377 incidents in the quarter, worth about $3.4 million in losses.

BY THE NUMBERS

204GBAverage data usage

per connection, per month

AVERAGE BROADBAND SPEED IN NZ

74.8MbpsPeak traffic on 04 April 2018

1.59Tbps

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6 Interview | Susie Stone

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GETTING WORK DONE and serving customers well is now a lot easier than when Susie Stone first joined the telecoms industry 20 years ago.

Which is fortunate because being general manager for business, government and wholesale at big challenger brand Vocus certainly gives Stone a lot to do. Prominent among her tasks has been merging operations when Vocus acquired Auckland telco CallPlus, as well as managing the company’s move on to the Telecommunications as a Service (TaaS) panel of telecoms service providers to the government.

Stone talks about what it is like working for challenger telcos. It was while working on local access and fibre roll-outs at Clear Communications in the late 1990s that Stone received her first industry battle scars.

“My area was deploying the local fibre and deciding what we would put on it. Then that grew into a broader products’ role, and then Clear got sold,” Stone offers as a potted work biography.

The scars came from ongoing skirmishes with Telecom as the latter fought to maintain its inherited monopoly position.

“Those were the old days when number porting was still being negotiated between the carriers,” she says. “Telecom believed it owned the entire New Zealand number range.”

Stone and her team would try to get local numbers for Clear’s business customers and Telecom would refuse to allocate contiguous number ranges.

“You might get 926 here and then you might get 938 over there, so you couldn't provide a great customer experience. It would be little things like that they would do – and pricing of course.”

When Clear went after a big client it would also often find that its target customer could get better pricing at a corporate level than Clear received at wholesale.

Stone likes complexity though. She came to the telco world out of the Ministry of Commerce, where she worked on an array of regulatory issues, from radio spectrum

policy to lawsuits over the promotion of the Māori language.

Much has changed for the better over the last two decades, she says, but issues of market dominance still regularly emerge. However, this is not peculiar to the telecommunications industry.

“I think there is a particular range of industries affected, where you have network economic effects – often large barriers to entry, if you’re talking about infrastructure investment,” she says.

Right now, the latest round of regulatory telecoms market interventions, in the form of the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Amendment Bill, is being brewed up in Wellington. Stone was tapped, in the absence of Vocus’ regulatory and commercial manager Graham Walmsley, to present Vocus’ oral evidence.

Top of the company’s wish list are changes to – or, indeed, the removal of – provisions easing restrictions on the lines of business that network operator Chorus

Skirmishes, scars and working for a challengerSusie Stone thrives in smaller telcos where the entrepreneurial climate allows her to just get things done. The Vocus Communications GM tells Rob O’Neill about the battles and the camaraderie

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8 Interview | Susie Stone

"Telco is a land of commodity products

and fast-moving technology changes.

So, it’s how you manage the customer

relationship… and the quality of the

service that you give, that matters"

Susie StoneVOCUS COMMUNICATIONS GM

can undertake, and changes to regulate only one entry-level anchor fibre product.

“I think that it’s completely erroneous to suggest that these are minor and inconsequential changes,” Stone says of the lines of business changes.

Vocus’ submission describes the combination of the two provisions as a “toxic cocktail” for existing retail competitors.

Another priority is building Vocus’ product and service capability for the TaaS panel, which it joined in January.

Getting on to the panel was especially welcome because FX Networks, which Vocus acquired for $116 million in 2014, boasted quite a strong government business. Vocus needed to get on the panel to secure this again.

Stone doesn’t agree with recent calls by local industry lobby NZRise to end all-of-government procurement by panel, which, it argues, disadvantages Kiwi companies.

Stone says she doesn’t quite understand NZRise’s particular beef, because she doesn’t see why providers can’t go and get themselves on to panels. That’s what gives them the “right to play,” she says.

Up until its 2016 merger with M2 Communications, Vocus didn’t bid to go on the TaaS panel because it didn’t have the necessary capability, she explains.

“So, I guess, I don’t see the panel structure per se as being a limitation.”

Far from it, in fact. Once the Vocus TaaS offering is bedded down, Stone says, the capabilities developed will be taken out to the business market.

While mergers, regulation and industry structures are always important, and sometimes entertaining, it is business as usual that is the key to success – the day in, day out of sales and customer service.

Stone says it is this engagement, and the service delivered afterwards, that differentiates Vocus.

“Telco is a land of commodity products and fast-moving technology changes. So, it’s how you manage the customer relationship; how you understand the business and the quality of the service that you give, that matters.

“It's not just the sales side. It’s if something does go wrong, how you respond to that.”

Right now, Stone is seeing a lot of interest from customers around voice, as well as much interest around IP telephony capability, hosted voice services and the cloud.

“There’s lots of talk about how they can take stuff that they have sitting in their offices and move it to the cloud.”

For Vocus, the ability to be flexible is key, and that is, in part, a product of having the right scale to deliver network reach and competitiveness, but not so much scale that the customer is going to get “lost inside the business”.

And, again, the FX Networks buy-out was a “fundamental differentiator” here. It gives speed and responsiveness for customers.

“If a customer wants a reasonably large amount of capacity to be turned on quickly, between two data centres in two cities, I can do that really fast,” says Stone.

“Having your own infrastructure gives you that ability, and you can differentiate

the products you offer depending on the capability of the equipment you put at the end of the fibre.”

Infrastructure also provides for better economies of scale, allowing Vocus to light large chunks of fibre it would not necessarily buy on the wholesale market.

A weak point for Vocus is mobile. It delivers this service as a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO. Once again, regulatory grit in the market machine is the issue.

“If you have a look at our submissions, we’d quite clearly like to see changes, to make it more cost effective for us and to give us the ability to really innovate in terms of what we offer,” she says.

“We’d like to see the pricing structure changed fundamentally, and I think the structure of how the products are delivered to us changed too, so we’re able to control how we put products together, rather than being limited by a defined product set that comes to us.”

As for NZ Inc, the availability of ubiquitous fibre is a game changer, says Stone.

“We only have to look at what’s going on in Australia to see the contrast.”

Having a core infrastructure in place gives companies the ability to innovate on top of the network.

Before fibre, the wholesale business basically saw the traditional carriers swapping minutes and traffic between each other, or selling inter-city backhaul.

“Because we’ve now got this ubiquitous fibre platform, we sell a service called ‘Telco in a Box,’ where we take brands to market that have absolutely no telco experience at all, but want to add a telco service to the other products and services that they offer.

“You can do that now because you’ve got this fibre infrastructure laid out to homes and businesses.”

A career with challenger telcos holds no regrets for Stone who relishes change and start-up style thinking, and the ability to get things done. There’s been no long-term career planning – just a search for interesting work and colleagues she likes to work with.

“Challengers are often more interesting to work in because it’s more about camaraderie and getting stuck in and getting things done,” she says. “You’re not worried about protecting old legacy revenues and things like that.”

9Feature | 4K television

2018 / Issue 7

When ultra-high definition football (UHD) broadcasts were launched in the UK, Sony took out

advertising printed on blades of grass and the studs of players’ boots. It was a stunt, but the point was made: the images are so clear you can see even the smallest details.

UHD (also known as 4K) TVs are the biggest growth market for manufacturers like Samsung and LG. UHD content is becoming much easier to get, and devices from game consoles to media boxes are 4K-compatible. This is definitely not a fad.

There is an issue with the format, however. High definition means large files. The more detail you pack in the more information needs to be stored in the files. This increases again if the content includes high dynamic range (HDR) – and high-quality audio, such as Dolby Atmos.

In the UK, those UHD football matches were broadcast by BT (formerly British

Images emblazoned on blades of grass and much

more – a revolution in television is coming, writes Haydn Green

STUNTS, SPORTS AND SUPER-SHARP IMAGES – 4K TV PROMISES BIG CHANGES

Telecom) over VDSL broadband. But here in New Zealand we have the chance to go one better, we can use UFB fibre.

Chorus has begun trials to see if New Zealand’s fibre network can be used as a broadcast medium direct to people’s homes. No more rain fade, no more aerials. Right now, it’s a proof of concept, but the potential is massive.

Kurt Rodgers, Chorus’ network strategy manager, says “the end-to-end 4K television ecosystem has been developing

fast and is now ready to go mainstream. A surprisingly large number of New Zealand households already have 4K-capable television sets and most televisions sold these days are 4K. In fact, we already have 4K streaming over the internet. Netflix does it, so does YouTube. What Chorus is proposing is slightly different.

“Fibre broadband will be available to 87 percent of the New Zealand population by 2022, and we’re connecting homes at a rate of one every minute of the working day,” says Rodgers. “This means that New Zealand will have the infrastructure in place to take 4K to the mass market.”

The service would run in parallel to any other broadband service also provided over the fibre network. It would use a second port on the optical network terminal (ONT), which would be installed in homes, to connect to consumers’ televisions. What this means in practical terms is still up in

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the air, but the development of the technology is exciting. Because fibre has a much higher capacity level, this separate broadcast service wouldn’t be connected to – or have an impact on – your regular broadband (although it may require a physical connection from the ONT to your television). It also means that if everyone in your neighbourhood is watching the rugby, you can still happily stream Netflix.

T E S T S U N D E R W A Y “4K isn’t worth paying for if the performance is bad,” says Hema Patel, general manager of Spark’s Lightbox, so she’s looking forward to the results of the Chorus test. So is Mediaworks. "We're always open to any new technology that makes our product more accessible and the viewer experience better," says a spokesperson.

The current 4K streaming experience is mixed. Netflix offers a UHD “premium” service for an extra $3.50 per month. Apple’s iTunes store sells UHD movies, but you can only view them on your television with the 4K Apple TV device.

Even having a 4K television is a barrier. While most homes have high-definition television, 4K UHD televisions are still rare. However this television category is the fastest growing one. Companies like LG and Samsung are in a race to get as many people converted to high dynamic range UHD televisions as possible.

And sport could be the driver that pushes this technology through to consumers the fastest.

“If there is ever going to be demand for 4K content, it will be for sports,” says Patel. She’s right. Just before the last Rugby World Cup there was a spike in sales of televisions as everyone rushed to upgrade. Manufacturers are bracing for the same again next year.

The 2019 Rugby World Cup is going to be broadcast by TVNZ and Spark, not Sky. And, while no decision has made concerning exactly how the games will be broadcast, they will be

"A surprisingly large number of New Zealand households already have

4K-capable television sets and most televisions

sold these days are 4K"Kurt Rodgers

CHORUS’ NETWORK STRATEGY MANAGER

2018 / Issue 7

11Feature | 4K television

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Q&ASPARK TALKS

RUGBY WORLD CUP 2019

Along with TVNZ, Spark has won the rights to broadcast next year’s Rugby World Cup. The showcase series of

games could be a catalyst for change in how Kiwis view sports as they will

be able to stream matches live or on-demand, either over their home broadband or mobile connection.

Rob O'Neill talks to Spark following its announcement

What is the deal, how does TVNZ fit in? Spark bid for and won the rights to the Rugby World Cup 2019 and the other tournaments, so we are the primary provider. If you want to have your pick of matches to watch during the Rugby World Cup 2019, this will be via a streaming service.

Spark also has an agreement with TVNZ that will see TVNZ screen some games free-to-air via its

streamed over broadband. This means that if the Chorus trial works we could see the All Blacks broadcast over the fibre network next year.

Rodgers says New Zealanders are even keener watchers of sport than the British and deserve to get the same high-quality images on their screens. Rugby has yet to be broadcast in UHD in New Zealand.

“4K video-on-demand services are already available via the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, but it’s going to be live streaming of major events like sport that really make 4K compelling to viewers.

Our nation’s favourite sports – rugby, cricket and netball – will all look fabulous in 4K quality. Bring it on.”

But sport is fleeting, what’s beyond that?

“There’s not a lot of 4K television content but there are a lot of 4K movies,” notes Patel. Lightbox is currently moving to a new platform and will be offering pay-per-view movies, so 4K delivery is at the forefront of their thinking.

Chorus has said it will offer all broadcasters the same opportunities. So, we could see a brand-new version

of Freeview, but delivered in a different way and with a lot more functionality.

Beyond simple 4K television there is a whole other world. Broadcasting over a UFB fibre network means you can add different layers to programmes. This could include different language tracks or interactivity, or the ability to change camera angles in real time. It also means we could potentially see television become more accessible with the use of closed captions and descriptive audio tracks. There is even the chance that captioning could be delivered by a third party, rather than relying on the broadcaster to do it.

Things that you could previously only do with pre-recorded shows will be possible with live television. And all simply because the UFB fibre network can carry more information than a regular broadcast ever could.

The fibre network is increasingly covering the country, and a significant number of homes are now connected. The race is on for 2019. The chance is there. Hopefully, someone will grab it.

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channels. We’ve committed to seven live games free-to-air, including the opening match and the final, with the other five live matches still to be confirmed.

What will Spark be doing to ensure most New Zealanders will be able to watch the Rugby World Cup? We would not have bid for these tournaments if we weren’t totally confident that our high-quality network (and the excellent networks of our competitors) would be able to deliver them via streaming services to New Zealanders.

We already have hundreds of thousands of customers streaming every night via Netflix, Lightbox, YouTube and so on. Sports streaming needs to be optimised a little differently to entertainment, but we will have a platform up and will stress-test it well in advance of the tournament.

There are currently 1.6 million households in New Zealand with broadband, and of these three-quarters have high (100GB-plus) data caps or unlimited plans. All but a tiny percentage of broadband connections have speeds capable of video-streaming.

The roll-out of fibre is also obviously a huge advantage when it comes to giving New Zealanders a high-quality viewing experience over a live stream. More than 500,000 homes now have fibre and a further 800,000 have Ultra-fast Broadband down the street, so they can be connected if they wish. While details of any customer education campaign leading up to the Rugby World Cup 2019 are still being worked through, you can assume that the advantages of a fibre connection for live streaming sports will feature in it.

Spark also offers a wireless broadband product that has the speed and capacity to carry a live stream for an event like this. We have invested – and will continue to invest – substantially in our mobile network. We

have rolled out 4.5G to 30 towns so far. This offers speeds of up to 300Mbps, or three to five times the speeds of standard 4G.

We will also work with our competitors and partners over the next 18 months to put arrangements in place to ensure New Zealanders have a great experience streaming these games, no matter what network they are on.

Will this result in accelerated 5G? Given the need to get spectrum for 5G, it’s unlikely any 5G services will be available before 2020. However, our 4.5G service is already in 30 towns. 4.5G is capable of delivering up to three to five times more speed and capacity than 4G from a single mobile tower to compatible devices, so you are already seeing a big increase in speed and capacity from this technology.

What percentage of the population will have ‘fast enough’ broadband in time? While the vast majority of New Zealand will have access to good quality broadband by 2019, we know there are some people – particularly in more remote rural areas – who do not have access to broadband, or whose broadband isn’t of a high enough quality to stream the games.

The government-sponsored Rural Broadband Initiative will mean

thousands more New Zealanders will have access to quality broadband by the time the Rugby World Cup comes around. However, we recognise there won’t be broadband available to every rural home or farm by 2019.

This is an issue high on our radar given the importance of this tournament to New Zealanders and we are actively looking at solutions. We’re still working through the details, but this could include deploying temporary infrastructure to community centres – such as rugby club rooms. There is a lot of work to do, but the tournament is still 18 months away and we will work actively on this.

Will Spark use local Content Delivery Network providers, and will the matches be served from Sydney? And, where does Lightbox fit into this? We are still working through specifics around our platform. We will have more to say about this in the coming months.

What has Spark learned from its experience with Premier League Football when it worked with Coliseum Sports Media? We learnt some valuable lessons from Lightbox Sport. The English Premier League proposition was actually a great success. The only reason we didn’t keep offering it was that we were outbid for the rights. After we lost the English Premier League, it made it hard to keep Lightbox Sport going.

Since then, Kiwis have become more and more comfortable with streaming, and every night we have hundreds of thousands of people streaming on our network. We think the Rugby World Cup 2019 is a great opportunity for a showcase event that will be a real catalyst for change in how people view sports.

"We think the Rugby World Cup 2019 is a

great opportunity for a showcase event that will be a real catalyst

for change in how people view sports"

Feature | 4K television

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14

TRUSTPOWER Riding the disruption

by Bill Bennett

NEW ZEALAND’S NEXT largest broadband service provider after Spark, Vodafone and Vocus is not a traditional telco. Bay of Plenty-based Trustpower still describes itself as an electricity generator and retailer. While electricity is still the company’s main business, in the last five years it has added gas and telecommunications services. In its own words, Trustpower is now a multi-product retailer.

Trustpower is New Zealand’s fifth largest electricity generator and the fourth largest retailer. It has about 12 percent of the retail energy market. It owns hydro plants in New Zealand and Australia. The business is part-owned by Infratil, which has a 50.7 percent share. About a quarter of the remaining shares are controlled by the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust and the rest are owned by small investors.

Broadband isn’t a bolt-on though, it was a deliberate strategy to get into the sector and, in hindsight, the timing was perfect.

Chief executive Vince Hawksworth says Trustpower made the decision to move into broadband in 2011.

“At the time, it was obvious that competition in the electricity sector was going to get more intense with lots of new entrants and new brands.”

Hawksworth says: “We considered our potential responses to that competition. At around the same time, work was starting on the nationwide fibre roll-out. It was clear to us that at some point in the future this was going to change the nature of the telecommunications industry. We also saw the separation of Telecom into what became Chorus and Spark.”

The broadband wholesale market changed. Hawksworth says Trustpower saw that as an opportunity. “It meant as a small player we were effectively a new entrant [and] we could start to have some certainty about the platform and the services we could provide for our customers.”

Hawksworth and his team sold this to the company board by talking about how the telecommunications industry would transform with fibre going past most New Zealand homes. “We could see that a player like us, which already had a lot of customers, would be able

Company focus | Trustpower

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16 Company focus | Trustpower

to cross-sell. We knew that so long as we could provide a quality level of service we’d be able to make progress.”

It helped that, thanks to the open access model, Hawksworth didn’t have to ask the board for a large capital expenditure budget. “We didn’t need to spend a lot of money before we got our first customer. We took a relatively low-cost approach to starting up,” he says.

This wasn’t without its own set of issues, however. Hawksworth says: “If you start a broadband business this way, then when you start to become successful you have to run really fast to catch up with the investment. However, by then you’ve proven the business case and you’re starting to see results.”

The recent push wasn’t Trustpower’s first foray into telecommunications. A decade or so ago, the company acquired an Oamaru-based call centre business that specialised in outsourced support for the electricity sector. As part of the transaction, Trustpower also picked up Kinect, a

small telco business. Hawksworth admits Trustpower didn’t do much with Kinect, but it did give the company some insight into telecommunications and a foot in the door.

Ultra-fast Broadband and the open access model were the right fit for Trustpower’s ambition. Hawksworth says: “All of our internet provision was effectively done as reselling other people’s services.”

As part of its strategic overview, Trustpower’s management team researched what was most important to broadband customers.

“We realised people have busy lives, so we came to the conclusion that bundling utilities could have some traction. We knew we were able to do this, so, in 2013, we rebranded. It wasn’t just a change of name, we had new colours and a new logo. We also acquired a small energy and gas business in Whanganui called Energy Direct New Zealand. This gave us the opportunity to sell gas as well,” says Hawksworth.

Trustpower relaunched as a triple-play business offering electricity, gas and

"We planned to ask people if they would ‘like fries with that’. Then we would sell

them gas or broadband as well as electricity.

In the event, we found it worked the

other way"Vince Hawksworth

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broadband. Hawksworth says at first the business intended to sell electricity as the lead product. “We planned to ask people if they would ‘like fries with that’. Then we would sell them gas or broadband as well as electricity. In the event, we found it worked the other way. People were coming to us to buy a fibre-based broadband product and buying their electricity with it.”

Bundling resonated with part of the market. Hawksworth says at this point Trustpower started to build the business. In the early days, the company wooed customers with price-led deals. It priced broadband under the average market rate, and introductory prices were lower again for the first months of a contract.

He says since then Trustpower has moved to value-led deals. The company offers a flat-screen TV or a fridge to people who sign up for longer term contracts. The deals appeal to a particular demographic segment, says Hawksworth.

While Trustpower is the only electricity retailer to have a substantial broadband business, it is not the only company playing in both markets. Vocus, which is very much steeped in the telco tradition now offers electricity to its customers.

As with Trustpower, the attraction for Vocus’ customers is a seamless experience, with one bill and a single point of service. Hawksworth notes that Vocus has been acquiring electricity customers at a fast pace by industry standards. It may be competition, but it doesn’t worry Trustpower. As Hawksworth says: “Imitation is a compliment”. He also points out the model is increasingly popular overseas. In Australia, the Dodo and Amaysim telco brands now also sell energy, while in the UK the Utility Warehouse offers similar service bundles.

For Hawksworth and his management team, the switch from copper to fibre represents a once in a generation opportunity to secure new customers. He says people are more open to the idea of changing their service provider when they switch technologies.

Another turning point was what Hawksworth calls the ‘Netflix revolution’ of 2015. This changed peoples attitudes towards fibre and broadband. It also changed usage patterns; customers now use a lot more data.

Before Netflix, Trustpower relied on outsourcing everything. He says that

changed: “We worked back from the consumer. We’ve taken a little more control of things. We now have our own operations team. We’ve invested in our own cache for Netflix and Google. We now have some infrastructure and we have our own backhaul.”

The strategy appears to have delivered for Trustpower. Hawksworth says that today the company has 90,000 broadband connections and 100,000 multi-product customers. “We would be one of the fastest growing start-ups over the last four or five years,” he says.

This year, Trustpower reported a net after tax profit of $129 million, up 38 percent on the previous year. Revenues were $946.9 million and around $80 million of this came from the company’s telco business.

If there is a secret to making Trustpower’s strategy work, it’s the nature of its multi-product customers. The electricity business and the telecommunications business share a common problem with customer churn. In practice, customers who buy more than one service from a retailer are far less likely to jump ship. Hawksworth says Trustpower has found that customers buying both broadband and electricity stay longer.

THE RISE AND RISE OF TRUSTPOWER In last year’s annual monitoring report, the Commerce Commission identified Trustpower as New Zealand’s fourth largest broadband service provider. It comes next after the traditional telcos: Spark, Vodafone and Vocus.

At the time of the report, the Commerce Commission estimated Trustpower had a broadband market share of around four percent. This put it in front of 2degrees, which sits in fifth place with a three percent market share.

While its market share is relatively small, Trustpower is growing at a clip. The monitoring report says Trustpower and 2degrees are the two fastest growing service providers. Under the headline “Smaller players gain ground”, the Commerce Commission said: “Both Trustpower and 2degrees ran strong marketing campaigns in 2016 and successfully gained a significant number of new fixed-line broadband customers.”

In Trustpower’s April 2018 operating report, published on the NZX website, the company said it added 11,000 broadband connections in the previous year, taking these to a total of 87,000. That is a 12.5 percent growth rate. This is an impressive result at a time when the total number of New Zealand broadband connections is only up around three percent.

For now, Trustpower’s telco activity is limited to reselling broadband. Although the main push is with fibre, the company also has copper broadband customers serviced by Unbundled Bitstream Access or UBA. This approach gives Trustpower a degree of control over the user experience without heavy investment in infrastructure. The company has previously made public statements that it would also like to offer mobile telephony but is frustrated by the lack of mobile virtual network operator options at the moment.

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18 Strategy | Beyond dumb pipes

Smaller ISPs struggle nowadays if they stick with offering a vanilla service. To succeed they need to

add value. Two local ISPs show how they did just that in very different

ways. Johanna Egar reports

A little strategic

thought goes a long way

THE DAYS OF BEING a simple ISP providing a plain-vanilla internet service are long gone. Technology doesn’t stand still, and while this poses a challenge it also provides opportunities for creative ISPs to change and grow.

Two very different New Zealand ISPs – business-focused DTS and broadband-plus-power specialist Megatel – have both harnessed technology changes to provide extra value to their customers in quite different ways.

DTS started out in Wellington in 2002 and just four years later expanded into Australia. DTS’ managing director, Steve Ritchie, says he noticed early on that a lot of his customers operated on both sides of the Big Ditch and there was a need for trans-Tasman connectivity. DTS specialises in serving these connectivity needs and now covers both countries totally with its bespoke WAN (Wide Area Networking) business solution and high-quality VoIP (Voice over IP) service.

DTS’ services are particularly valuable to those companies that have several branches. For our interview, we connected via a Wellington telephone number, but Ritchie was on Australia’s Gold Coast and I was in Auckland. The sound quality was excellent.

“We’ve always ensured we have good pipes,” says Ritchie. He says DTS has always been a business ISP, so quality is important. The company also constantly looks ahead. “We continually plan. We sit down and think, and plan. And we are always looking for new products and services we can offer our customers.”

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In line with this, DTS has recently introduced two new services. One is a new softphone service. This VoIP-based service uses a simple app downloaded from Google Play that connects desk and mobile phones. It means users can answer calls on either phone wherever they are. The technology is licensed from the US’ CounterPath and managed in-house by DTS.

The company has also just launched a rather unusual service for an ISP – a virtual reception service. DTS has teamed up with a contact centre to provide the new app-based remote answering

service. Tailored to customers’ specific business needs, the software behind it displays a customer’s unique company information on-screen to the ‘receptionist’ at the call centre, so he or she can act like they are working in-house. The service runs on DTS’ internet and uses its VoIP facilities.

Ritchie says DTS is more of a managed service provider than a simple ISP these days, but boundaries between the two are becoming blurred.

“Bandwidth is becoming a commodity, so you have to offer other services like VoIP or WAN, or managed services," says Ritchie. “You

have to provide value or you are simply a utility. You need to provide good products for people and you can’t have a utility attitude.”

Analyst Gartner’s telecoms specialist, King-Yew Foong, echoes Ritchie. He recently looked at what smaller ISPs can do to compete with larger telcos in Gartner’s report, Market trends: top five disruptions for CSPs (communications service providers) worldwide, 2018-2023.

One strategy smaller ISPs can adopt is to partner with those in other business areas, says Foong. Which is exactly what DTS has done with both its new products. Foong advises ISPs to “be like supermarkets and sell others’ products, and bill on behalf of your partners.”

Partnering is a big part of our other ISP Megatel’s strategy. But it is also involved in customer account management and billing. The latter is an under-rated but complex and important part of delivering utility services. One of Megatel’s main services is a double utility broadband-cum-power package.

POWER & ASIAN TV – UNUSUAL MIX WORKS Megatel has been offering a triple-play service – mobile, internet and TV – to Auckland’s Korean and Chinese communities for several years. The Albany-based company’s youthful founders noticed this was popular in Asia but hadn’t yet reached New Zealand. At the time, other ISPs were offering just a basic broadband service.

Megatel’s founders Jisan Jang, known as JJ, and Jakob Lee still

Steve Ritchie, DTS managing director

thedownload.co.nz

20 Strategy | Beyond dumb pipes

"If you are small, it becomes difficult if you only provide

broadband. You have to be creative and add value to your existing

product. I strongly believe that the only way to stay in the market and win customers is by bundling and

providing customers with services"Jakob Lee

MEGATEL CEO

keep a close eye on the Korean market especially, as it tends to be ahead of New Zealand.

But the company didn’t stop at triple-play – it also pioneered broadband-plus power in New Zealand – ahead of Trustpower. Its partner is Auckland’s Vector. Power has become a very profitable part of Megatel’s business and has also allowed it to move out of its original niche and attract mainstream business customers who are interested in the cheap power element of the package.

Megatel’s Jakob Lee, now CEO, says the company is always seeking to add value for its customers. For instance, Megatel will upgrade new power customers’ legacy electricity meters to a smart meter for free if necessary. Although Lee says 80 percent of New Zealanders now have these smart meters. However, as Megatel is about to launch a nationwide pre-paid broadband and electricity product – starting with the Bay of Plenty and

Waikato – this will be of value to some new customers.

Lee says, “If you are small, it becomes difficult if you only provide broadband. You have to be creative and add value to your existing product. I believe that the only way to stay in the market and win customers is by bundling and providing customers with services.”

Although Megatel started with a simple 15 percent power discount to attract customers, it has now gone

well beyond this with the aid of SDN (Software Defined Networks) technology. This new technology puts elements of the telecoms network in the cloud. Importantly, it allows ISPs to have the kind of digital relationship with their customers that Netflix, Amazon Web Services or Google enjoy. For instance, customers can make changes to their service at the click of a button, rather than needing technician help.

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WHAT THE TELCOS ARE DOING The big telcos, Spark, Vodafone and Vocus, have also been keen to add value to their services. And power companies like Trustpower have got into the market from the other end, adding broadband services to their power offering.

For example, Trustpower offers a variety of broadband plans along with its electricity and gas service – plus a free fridge, washing machine or television for new sign-ons. A sign of just how competitive the power-cum-broadband market has become.

Spark has two big added-value offerings: Lightbox, its television service, and Morepork, its home security offering. Lightbox serves up popular TV shows that can be watched on multiple devices – from smart TVs to laptops to tablets. Morepork is Spark’s home security service which allows you to monitor your home from your mobile or a web portal.

Vodafone also offers an internet-delivered television service. Customers using its fibre network can enjoy a consolidated TV service that delivers Sky TV, free-to-air television and a range of online and app-based entertainment services, including Netflix, via just one set-top box.

Then there is retail giant The Warehouse which works with 2degrees to offer a budget mobile plan aimed at people who make a lot of calls but don’t use much data.

Vocus Communications has chosen to expand into the energy market. Vocus has CallPlus, Slingshot and Orcon under its umbrella and specialises in corporate telecommunications services but also offers a discounted electricity and broadband package for consumers. This comes courtesy of small power company Switch Utilities, which it bought in 2016.

Lastly, there are two notable ISPs worth mentioning: PrimoWireless and Voyager. We covered both ISPs in the last issue of The Download. PrimoWireless runs Taranaki’s rural wireless internet service but also runs a VoIP service over the broadband fibre it uses. This provides a backbone for its mainly rural service. While ISP-delivered VoIP services are common, Primo’s adds real value for its rural customers. Voyager has moved in quite another direction. The business-focused ISP has transformed into a much broader company and now offers a cloud-based PBX service, as well as modern video-conferencing services.

Megatel is simplifying its pre-pay broadband-cum-power packaged service for customers in this way. Customers can now easily check their balance or top it up using an app Megatel has developed.

SDN technology helps ISPs too. Lee says that “on the management side, the automated systems we’ve built mean that to deal with [say] 2,000 customers we only need one-and-a-half service centres. And our automated smart app helps customers make multiple requests.”

Megatel is also expanding its TV service into the region. It offers Korean and Chinese television programmes, either through the set-top box it developed early on, or over PC or mobile. It is now expanding this service to Vietnam and Thailand, no doubt helped by the fact that its youthful staff speak up to four North Asian languages, as well as English. Megatel’s service offers more variety and is also cheaper than satellite-delivered television.

To grow in this way, Megatel is expanding its multiple television partnerships even

further, a textbook example of what Gartner’s Foong recommends smaller ISPs do.

Gartner’s other recommendations include looking to the universities and the start-up world to access the funding and skilled staff small ISPs often lack. Foong also recommends taking advantage of cheaper cloud services like security firewall services, as well as SDN, which puts telecoms routers in the cloud.

“Using these cloud-available services is a ‘disruptive play’ for ISPs as telco incumbents have expensive network infrastructure they need to

maintain” says Foong. He points to Singapore-based MyRepublic’s use of SDN for its MySDN WAN service. The ISP – it is a very large one with a small New Zealand presence – advertises this service as being much more flexible than a traditional WAN. For instance, it allows for immediate changes and can also be set up quickly because it is software-driven.

Megatel is also obviously making good, if different, use of SDN technology. But it’s not the only one. Another local ISP, Napier’s NOW, is also doing so – see story in our news section.

King-Yew Foong, Gartner chief of research for communications service providers

thedownload.co.nz

22 Network technology | Now SD-WAN

Napier ISP Now, is providing telco-style network services – based on SDN (software defined network) technology

– to Hawkes Bay’s five councils, writes Johanna Egar. Napier’s council is already reaping the benefits

HAWKES BAY’S FIVE councils have leap-frogged into modern networking with their decision to install ‘network in the cloud’ SDN (software defined network) technology on their WAN (wide area network).

Napier City Council has used it to upgrade its traditional WAN and have already seen earthquake-proofing benefits – by accident.

Duncan Barr, Napier City Council’s information services manager, says they put out a tender to upgrade their network last July and started installing their new SD-WAN from local ISP Now, in November. The council was doing a seismic assessment at the same time, to see how earthquake-proof its buildings were. They weren’t. This meant everyone had to temporarily move out of the council’s headquarters, says Barr.

“But we didn’t have to house our comms infrastructure on the premises while we evacuated as we could house it at Now.

We effectively no longer have a traditional star-and-spoke WAN configuration, so we’ve seen some immediate benefit already,” says Barr.

SDN technology puts a lot of a telecoms network’s technology in the cloud, which means users can make changes and add services easily, in a similar way to how you can add servers and applications remotely using hosted services like Amazon Web Services (AWS). It also means, as Barr discovered, that you are less vulnerable, because you are less hardware dependent on traditional infrastructure.

Beyond this, Now – which thinks of itself more as a digital services provider than an ISP nowadays – says the Nokia Nuage Network SDN technology it is using to upgrade the five councils’ communications network is also quite transformative.

Now CEO Hamish White says SDN makes networks a lot more agile. “It means you can connect another site into your WAN

really easily – it’s literally drag-and-drop through a browser interface.” He compared this with the costly, time-consuming business of having to brief an IT integrator and then have that company’s engineers make site visits to make any and every network change.

“Now you can do this from the keyboard literally through the browser. You can pop up a site and add it to your WAN overnight, and you don’t need an integrator. It means you’re more agile. Traditionally, businesses have had to fit into how a network was engineered and change was slow, but today it’s about how the network can improve the business experience.

“The councils have a lot of sites. Napier City Council alone has over 20 sites, from parks to aquariums, to swimming pools, libraries and administration blocks. They have to manage the logistics of a very wide area network. It’s massive. They had no visibility and weren’t very agile.”

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Duncan Barr’s take on this is that the councils were looking for a technology solution that would allow the five councils, which between them operate 62 sites, to collaborate better. They already have Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) installed at the regional level – this provides computing services from the cloud – and with SDN technology also being in the cloud, the councils will be able to share services more easily.

Barr says “SD-WAN is to traditional comms what virtualisation is to servers. It changes the way you operate in unimaginable ways. We’ve already got better redundancy, better bandwidth and a better price-point, but SD-WAN will enable us to do transformational stuff as we go forwards.”

Now’s White says many businesses are still using clunky 25-year-old frame relay technology or hybrids, and painted a scenario dear to sports fans hearts of how SDN technology can easily bring major sports events into the office.

“A major football game being shown one morning can easily be streamed as the IT manager can responsively manage and control traffic prioritisation at the stroke of a couple of keys – rather than spend weeks planning for such an event through an IT integrator.”

SD-WAN technology allows IT managers to self-diagnose any network problems as well as prioritise traffic. The network is more reliable too as you can, say, fail-over to a 3G or 4G connection and smooth over any bumps in connectivity.

Barr says when the council put out its RFP (Request for Proposal), it was seeking a technology solution for the five Hawkes Bay councils, so they could collaborate and share services better. They want to share data and have virtual meetings more easily, and to all be on the same network.

“When we go to different councils, we want to be able to log into our home network rather than have to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to get in. SD-WAN will simplify connectivity between the five councils. These are simple things we want to do under the umbrella of better collaboration.”

Barr is confident this will happen – the council’s small IT team is still installing the new technology, but he’s confident Nokia’s

Nuage SDN technology will deliver these benefits. “It’s comforting that Now has a major supplier like Nokia at the back-end. It’s not Tom’s IT company buying stuff off the internet. It’s not bleeding edge technology now, but we are in the forefront.

“We got SD-WAN by default, but that was because we wanted a technology solution. To us, as a business, we, the five councils, wanted closer collaboration and better services between us; that’s the win, but we also got more for less.”

That Now is a local, Napier-based company was another unexpected bonus. It was up against big telcos in the tender bid, but, says White, the solutions they offered used old – up to 30 years’ old technology – “while we turned up with leading edge, for this part of the world, technology. The councils want to create a pathway for an ever-evolving future and to have a foundation network that promotes greater agility and visibility, so they can embrace other cloud content and applications coming out… [SDN] puts them on a progressive pathway.”

Elsewhere in the world, SDN technology, while still new, is already being used by major telcos. White thinks the councils’ move to SD-WAN was “pretty progressive”. Barr prefers a car analogy, saying: “We wanted a technology refresh. We just said we wanted a faster car, as opposed to a Ford Falcon – which is what you would have got in the past – and we got a Ferrari.”

Now’s Hamish White (left) and Napier City Council’s Duncan Barr – bringing ‘networking in the cloud’ to Hawkes Bay

thedownload.co.nz

24 Interview | Paul Walsh

Since Chorus established its art programme, artists throughout the country have been painting its telecommunications cabinets in a bid to prevent vandalism, writes Holly Cushen

YOU MAY HAVE SEEN Paul Walsh’s art work adorning telecoms utility cabinets on our bustling city streets and in quiet cul-de-sacs. Walsh grew up in Rotorua and first realised his artistic ambitions aged just 15. Now based in Auckland, he has his own website and is frequently commissioned to create commercial works. He makes a living doing what he loves.

We asked him some quick questions to get a better picture of the man behind the quirky cabinet artworks.

When did you realise you had artistic talent and have you always aspired to be an artist? Like most artists, I always loved painting and drawing. My school-books were always full of comic strips and doodles, but I didn’t seriously consider making a career out of art until I was 15. I remember when my mum’s friend saw one of the paintings I had done for School Certificate Art and offered to buy it. This inspired me to hang some pieces in the Fat Dog Cafe in Rotorua. They all sold, and after that I was hooked.

How did you get involved with Chorus and its cabinet art programme? After I moved to Auckland, in 2007, I met a few guys who were really into graffiti. I used to go out with them and they would paint their graffiti pieces, and I would paint weird characters next to them. I eventually started painting the characters by themselves.

One night I really wanted to paint something, but I’d had a few beers and didn’t want to drive. So, I walked to our local dog park in Three Kings and, under the light of the moon, painted a big ‘Grumpy Cat’ [the internet celebrity cat] on the water tower. People loved it. This grumpy feline looking down its nose at the dogs playing in the park. However, after four or five months, someone else painted a big tag across the top, and then the whole wall was painted over.

This led to a newspaper article and then a petition to “Bring back the Grumpy Cat”. The article caught the attention of Jo Seddon at Chorus, who got in touch, via the newspaper, and suggested I paint some of the local Chorus cabinets. Forty artworks later and I’m still doing them.

Tell me about some of the experiences you’ve had painting the cabinets? Almost every cabinet leads to some public interaction – particularly once the artworks start taking shape. It’s almost always positive. People love seeing colour appear in their neighbourhood.

There are a couple of experiences that stand out, like the time I was painting a cabinet on Auckland’s Karangahape Road and spent the day surrounded by various ‘ladies of the night’ offering artistic feedback. Then there was the time I forgot to wear my high-vis vest and had the police called on me.

Tricky question: what is your favourite cabinet painting? It would probably be Piggy Stardust – it’s next to the kindergarten both my children went to, and the guinea pig featured in the artwork lives at the kindergarten. Then, less than a year after I painted it, David Bowie, who was the original inspiration for the artwork, passed away, so that artwork really resonates with me.

So, what’s next for you? I’m still painting cabinets – they have helped open up a world of other artistic possibilities. I am now painting commercial murals and public artworks full-time, supporting my family through the work. And, as long as I can keep doing that, well, I think the phrase that best sums it up is the old cliché: I’m living the dream.

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You can see more of the artist’s works at: paulwalsh.co.nz

ABOVE: Grumpy Cat mural, located in the dog park at Three Kings, Auckland

LEFT: Piggy Stardust, corner of View and Wynyard Roads, Mt Eden, Auckland

FAR LEFT TOP: Noo Zillun, corner Fort Street and Jean Batten Place, Auckland

FAR LEFT BOTTOM: The Modern Working Dog, outside ASB Showgrounds, Auckland

thedownload.co.nz

26 Connectivity | Your home

ONLY CONNECT – BEYOND MOVIES AND GAMING

FIRST, WHAT IS A SMART HOME? For many people, the idea of an internet-connected smart home is like something out of the realms of science fiction. However, the internet has given rise to an entire ecosystem of devices and services that can, without much fuss, add a Space Age layer of convenience and security to your home – and at almost any price point. Even if the thought of a fully connected home is a step too far, chances are there’s a gadget or two out there that can be genuinely useful to the right person.

Areas like home security, entertainment and household chores are all ripe with opportunity. The companies building these gadgets know this, so it’s easy to find all manner of connected devices, ranging from security cameras, lights and streaming music players, through to barbeques, fridges and vacuum cleaners. All of these can be made to do your bidding through a mix of voice commands, artificial intelligence and good, if now rather old-fashioned, mobile apps.

Have you streamed the entire Netflix back catalogue or shot every Xbox Live baddie in sight? Are you wondering what else your fast broadband connection is good for? How about using it to turn your house into a smart home? Scott Bartley shows you how

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W H E R E T O S T A R T – S M A R T S P E A K E R S A N D C A M E R A S While it’s possible to pay someone thousands of dollars to rig your home like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, connecting the parts of your house that actually matter is simple given the wide range of connected gadgets available. As long as there is good Wi-Fi and internet to connect to, most of these devices don’t need anything more than a power socket to install them.

When it comes to home entertainment, the rise of smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home – which are connected to the internet 24/7 (and all but useless without it) – have started to make their mark. Not only can they be used to stream music, podcasts and other audio, but they can also double as a personal digital assistant operated by voice commands.

Home security provides another reason for getting onboard with the connected home. The ability to keep an eye on the house, both inside and out, from almost anywhere using an internet-connected security camera, is incredibly useful.

Options abound so there is no shortage of choice, but two of the big names in the business are Ring – makers of the Ring Video Doorbell system – and Google-owned Nest. Here is how they approach home security:

Ring my always-on digital bellPaying from $199 to as much as $749 for a doorbell sounds crazy at first, but there is more to the battery-powered Ring Video Doorbell than chimes. The chocolate bar-sized base model sports a high-definition video camera, wide-angle lens, night vision, Wi-Fi, microphone and a speaker. All of this makes it possible to answer a knock (or button push) at the door via a mobile app, even while away from home. In other words, as long as there is an internet service available, it’s easy to tell a courier where to leave a parcel, or even to hide from pesky salespeople trying to hock their wares. It’s also easy to pretend there is someone home using the Ring Doorbell.

You can add more than one doorbell too, or even the Ring Floodlight camera to improve coverage around the house.

Subscriber benefitsAs is often the case these days, there is a subscription service that adds yet more

benefits. With a Ring subscription you get cloud recording. This means Ring Doorbell will automatically upload video of anyone ringing your doorbell, or any other motion detected, to the cloud. This means even if it’s not possible to check the alerts it sends straightaway, it’s easy to go back later and see what happened.

The upshot of all this is that the entire system relies on having a fast internet connection backed by a strong Wi-Fi signal to get the best out of it. The system is, at heart, a private video-streaming service and that makes fast internet crucial.

Feathering the digital nestWhile the Ring system tends to focus on what’s happening outside the house, Nest cameras look inwards (although they do make an outdoor camera, as well).

Sadly, in New Zealand, Nest sells only a small number of the products available to its American customers, but these include a couple of nice indoor cameras, an outdoor camera and a smoke/carbon monoxide detector called Nest Protect.

Like Ring, the Nest cameras can detect motion and then send out a mobile alert, so users can tune in to see what’s going on. However, Nest adds another, smarter, layer on top that brings in facial recognition too.

All Nest’s smart processing is actually done in the cloud rather than in the device itself. It does this by continually uploading video from the Nest Cam to the internet, where Nest software analyses and stores the video. That’s right, Nest cameras are constantly streaming live HD video (albeit privately) to the internet.

Needless to say, this is a bandwidth-intensive activity and Nest is the first to say that for all this to work it needs a connection with a minimum upload speed of 2Mbps. We would add that an internet plan that includes a decent monthly data allocation is also necessary.

Light up remotely Even lights work better with Wi-Fi these days, and Philips’ Hue kits are a perfect example. An expandable, Wi-Fi connected lighting system, it hooks into your home network and makes it possible to turn the lights on or off using a mobile app. This sounds like the height of 21st century laziness, but there are legitimate reasons to consider it – security being one, and

automated convenience another. The ability to turn lights on remotely while away is a good way of fooling the bad guys into thinking someone is at home. Lights can also be dimmed and, if using the more expensive coloured bulbs, lighting recipes can be thrown into the mix as well, to set the mood.

Clean house the digital wayRobotic vacuum cleaners like Roomba tend to keep to themselves, handling most of the dirty work without any human input. However, they still need the internet to program cleaning schedules, and to receive alerts should they get themselves stuck, or if a wheel gets jammed. Sadly, humans will still be needed to empty the dust catcher.

I F T H I S , T H E N T H A TEven though these examples are only a small sample of the kind of connected devices available (we haven’t even touched on barbecues, heat pump controls and fridges), it’s easy to see how the internet can make them all much more useful.

They can become better still once they all start talking to each other. This isn’t some Terminator-style doomsday scenario, rather it’s a way of coaxing the various gadgets from different manufacturers to work together.

To reach this state of connected Zen, some prior research to ensure the various gadgets being bought are capable of talking to one another, is necessary.

This is because there are competing standards, some of which aren’t very open (Apple Homekit gear, for example, is fairly exclusive). In contrast, some products are designed to work with each other right out of the box (Nest cameras and Philips Hue lights, for example). However, a better way is to check if a device supports something called IFTTT, which stands for If This, Then That.

All the devices mentioned above support IFTTT. This means that by downloading the IFTTT mobile app, it’s possible to do things like have the Roomba pause in its cleaning cycle if the Nest Cam sees the phone being used. Or, the app can turn the Hue lights on (or off) when someone enters (or leaves) a room. Some products work well together, some don’t, but with some careful research before purchasing, the possibilities are endless. And everything is powered by fast broadband and home Wi-Fi. PH

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28 Connectivity | Your home

THE AGE OF the voice-activated, artificial intelligence-packed smart speaker has arrived. And, like it or not, this market is only going to get bigger if the efforts of Google and Amazon are anything to go by.

According to one report, the smart speaker segment – of which these two American tech giants own some 92 percent of – is set to flourish. Current estimates of its worth range from US$2.7 billion to a hefty US$11.8 billion, over the next five years. And, as if to add an exclamation mark to this, Apple has joined the fray with a smart speaker of its own. To say that smart speakers are all the rage is, quite clearly, a massive understatement.

So what’s the big deal with them then? What are they and why are they so important all of a sudden? Let’s start by defining exactly what a smart speaker is.

WHAT IS A SMART SPEAKER? Technically, any standalone, internet-connected, wireless speaker that accepts voice commands can be called a smart speaker. However, it’s the ones that are powered by one of the artificial intelligences that are causing all the fuss. These include speakers made by Google (Google Assistant) Amazon (Alexa) and, to a lesser extent, Apple (Siri) as well as Microsoft (Cortana – although, given Microsoft still hasn’t officially launched a New Zealand version of Cortana, it’s safe to say this is a non-starter in this country). These internet-powered digital assistants let people get whatever they want done using voice commands.

The intelligence behind Google Home, for instance, has been quietly infiltrating

Android mobile phones for years now, through its Google Assistant technology. If you’ve ever tried an “OK, Google…” command on your phone, congratulations, you’re ahead of the pack. Smart speakers bundle this kind of functionality into a compact, all-in-one device designed to sit around the home waiting to attend to the whims of the humans that live there.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX? Out of the box, smart speakers tend to be used mainly for playing music, podcasts, internet radio and audio-books. They are also able to perform internet searches, responding in kind once the appropriate search result has been found.

The devices themselves range from proper grunty audiophile-level speakers (check out Apple’s HomePod) down to diminutive wee devices (think Amazon Echo Dot and Google Home Mini) which provide a basic speaker but are backed by the same smarts as their bigger siblings.

Smart speakers depend entirely on the internet to work and as such come packed with a built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connection. From there, they will need only a power socket or their own battery power to work.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL? It’s the sheer convenience of them that’s making these smart speakers so valuable to their owners. People seem to love the way they can get basic work done simply by talking.

How often have you been in the middle of some task at home, your hands are full or covered in muck, and you realise you

need to do a quick Google search. Now, imagine being able to simply ask. Or, with a little smart-home integration (more on this below), you can have the lights turn on when you come home after work in the dark with arms full of bags and shopping. For people with disabilities, smart speakers can be a life-changing addition to the home.

Of course, for the likes of Google and Amazon, their value lies in all the usual areas from which these companies famously profit – selling advertisements, goods and services.

PRIVACY PROBLEMS? One possible fly in the ointment is that smart speakers are always listening. That sounds a little George Orwell 1984. However, they need to be able to do this to respond to their human overlords’ various needs. The companies making the devices say the microphones only send the audio to the company servers once they hear the “wake word” (think “OK Google” or “Alexa,” for Amazon Echo). However, there are genuine privacy concerns. Cory Doctorow, of online tech magazine Boing Boing, has called smart speakers the “normalisation of surveillance”. Certainly, in a post-Facebook world, it can be difficult to know how much faith one can put in these companies when it comes to protecting your private data.

And even if privacy doesn’t factor into your thinking, the whole “talking to the house” carry-on isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste. Nor is every Google search you might want to make necessarily one you want to announce out loud.

SMART SPEAKERS – SO MUCH MORE THAN GOOD SOUND They can be the heart of your budding smart home and your willing digital assistant, writes Scott Bartley. However, there is a sting in the tail with the new AI-powered smart speakers

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PICKING THE RIGHT SPEAKER Moving swiftly on, and assuming such things aren’t a cause for concern, there are untold choices for the potential smart speaker buyer. While Google and Amazon make their own hardware, both allow, and, indeed, encourage other speaker-makers to build their own flavour of smart speaker and then load them up with the AI brains Google and Amazon can provide for them. For the user this provides a common platform and consistency of experience, while still being able to choose the hardware that best suits the user’s needs.

DO THEY PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS? More than how it looks and sounds, perhaps the most important consideration is how well a speaker will play with existing devices in the home. Unsurprisingly, Google Assistant works rather well with Android phones and other Google products (like Chromecast), as does Alexa. Apple, as ever, is a mixed bag when it comes to compatibility, but will obviously work better with iOS devices than any others. The point is, before jumping in and buying a smart speaker, do ensure it will actually work with everything else you have. Here’s a quick primer on some of what’s available:

Google Home The Google Home range of speakers includes three units of varying size – the Google Home, which looks something like a small desk lamp; the tiny and inconspicuous Google Home Mini; and the larger, more powerful Google Home Max. While none of these are officially available in New Zealand, they can be bought from Australia and also in some local stores as an import.

Amazon Amazon is a prolific manufacturer of smart speakers and its Echo branded line has grown to fill almost every home-audio niche imaginable, though not all are available in New Zealand. The original Amazon Echo still persists ($179) albeit now in its second generation. It’s now accompanied by a plethora of other speakers, some of which even come with little screens.

The $229 Echo Spot (which is now available in New Zealand) is one such device. About the size of an alarm clock (incidentally, one of its uses), the Spot has a 2.5-inch colour display that can be used for video-calls, displaying weather updates or watching the news. Then there is the bare minimum $89 Echo Dot. Amazon clearly hopes we will all put one of these in every room.

Apple HomePod Apple has just the one smart speaker: the HomePod. By all accounts, this device produces some of the finest audio on the market. Of course, it doesn’t play nicely with other devices, so it helps to be fully immersed in the Apple universe if you want to make the best use of it. Oh, and Apple hasn’t decided when it will start selling the HomePod in New Zealand. The story of our lives here.

Sonos Sonos has a long history in the wireless, smart speaker business. However, until very recently none of the company’s speakers worked with Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa. Some DIY workarounds allowed for a little compatibility, but nothing worked smoothly out of the box. The brand-new, although, here it comes, not yet available in New Zealand Sonos One changes all this – it supports both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

GOING ‘FULL SMART HOME’ Amazon and Google know there is value in encouraging third-party vendors to build devices that work with Alexa and Google Assistant, so they produce an API (application programming interface) to make the task easier. It’s these third-party devices that transform a smart speaker from a fancy music player into a true smart-home hub.

For example, throw in a set of smart lights such as the Philips Hue (get a three-bulb starter kit for around $280) along with a $199 Ring Video Doorbell or a $549 Nest Cam IQ security camera and suddenly it’s possible to have lights that turn on automatically as people enter a room.

HERE TO STAY Smart speakers look like they are here to stay – Amazon and Google will see to that. And, even if the thought of having a voice-controlled smart home makes you feel cold, there is no doubt that the ability to easily stream music around the home, without having to run wires everywhere or clutter up the place with bulky speaker systems, will be a drawcard in itself. As long as these companies take our privacy seriously, a smart speaker can make a great addition and will be the beating heart of any budding smart home. PH

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30 Net safety | Online abuse

Online harm now affects 10 percent of all KiwisFacebook messages at centre of Christchurch teen’s death, Napier’s mayor abused – these represent just a couple of the many thousands of ‘toxic’ online messages and images we now have to deal with, reports Heather Wright

IN APRIL, A CHRISTCHURCH teenager was ordered by a judge to delete her Facebook account after sending “harmful” messages to a 13-year-old girl who later died in a suspected suicide. Also in April, Napier’s mayor, Bill Dalton, quit Facebook following abusive comments. These stories have propelled online abuse back into the news.

But the effects of online abuse and harassment are being felt much more widely according to a recent Netsafe survey that showed one in three New Zealanders had received some form of unwanted communication over a 12-month period. Around one-third of these people – around 10 percent of the population – reported being unable to take part in their usual activities, including working, eating, sleeping or participating online, as a result.

For young New Zealanders, this figure increases to one in five receiving unwanted harmful communications.

The Netsafe results echo an Amnesty International report that found one-third of 500 Kiwi women surveyed had experienced online abuse and harassment. Seventy-five percent of these said it had affected their sleep, 49 percent

feared for their physical safety and 32 percent feared for the physical safety of their families.

And we’re not talking about people disagreeing with someone else’s opinion. Amnesty International New Zealand campaigns manager Meg de Ronde says the survey set a high threshold, defining harassment “in terms of threats of violence, threats of sexual assault and so on.”

“It’s definitely a big issue,” says Netsafe’s CEO, Martin Cocker. “If 10 percent of the population are being affected, that’s a sizeable problem.”

Set up in 1998, Netsafe is funded by the government to assess and investigate non-criminal complaints about online bullying, harassment and abuse under the 2015 Harmful Digital Communications (HDC) Act. Criminal complaints are handled by the police.

The act defines harmful digital communications as digital communications aimed at an individual which cause “serious emotional distress” and either has or could seriously breach one or more of 10 communications principles outlined in the act. These principles include disclosing sensitive personal facts; being threatening, intimidating

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or menacing; making false allegations; and inciting someone to commit suicide.

Each week, Netsafe receives around 50 reports of harmful digital communications. Cocker believes this is just the tip of the iceberg.

“We know one in 10 New Zealanders is harmed by digital communication each year, which means there are hundreds of thousands of people being affected by online abuse and harassment,” he says.

“There can be a perception that online communication doesn’t harm adults, or that it is an issue for a small minority. However, our research highlights the very real impact that online abuse can have on a person’s quality of life. For far too many New Zealanders, what is being said to or about them online is having a very real negative impact on their daily lives,” Cocker says.

“The culture of exchanges online is so aggressive and toxic at times that people don’t realise that if they are harming someone it is an offence in New Zealand,” he adds.

That’s a view shared by Jon Duffy, Trade Me’s head of Trust and Safety, who notes Trade Me – which, with its 3.5 million subscribers, tends to be a good reflection of New Zealand in general – sees its share of keyboard warriors emboldened by the anonymity of the internet.

“The very existence of the HDC Act supports this – that discourse on the internet is fundamentally different from discourse in real life, hence you need a specific piece of legislation that only applies to communication on the internet,” Duffy says.

“Isn’t it weird that you need kind of ‘rules of combat’ for how you conduct yourself on the internet? Those rules are

don’t want to end up a party to a defamation action because we have seen a comment and not taken action.”

But Duffy also notes that the HDC Act process could result in well-resourced or otherwise aggressive complainants shutting down free speech on topics.

“There is a real risk there, and I think the courts, Netsafe and venues like Trade Me need to be quite vigilant about that.”

Amnesty International, too, has questions about the HDC Act. In the wake of its survey, it consulted with other parties, including domestic and sexual violence workers.

“The feedback was very much that they wanted a review of the legislation to see whether all of the people that need protection are being protected and whether it was working as it was intended,” de Ronde says.

self-evident in face-to-face dealings – you don’t need a piece of legislation that says you can’t be intimidating or rude in real life, but you do for the internet. I find that really, really interesting.”

As a content host, Trade Me has obligations under the HDC Act and monitors the site, removing or editing content if necessary and regularly banning users if they present a financial, emotional or physical risk to other members. The company, whose disputes team handles about 300 complaints a week, also works with the police if members are threatened.

Questions and answers, feedback and the message boards are key areas monitored, with Duffy noting that the message board is “its own magical world”. While it provides a wealth of information for site users, seemingly innocuous threads can descend into name calling, defamation and potentially harmful digital communications.

“We have to very actively monitor what goes on the message boards because we don’t want people defamed. We want them to have a pleasant experience and also we

Jon Duffy, Trade Me head of Trust and Safety

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32 Net safety | Online abuse

A request to the Minister for Justice, Andrew Little, for a review was successful, she says, with Little saying this will take place later this year.

Of particular interest are areas such as the cumulative effects of abuse. “The legislation has been really good for one-off, serious cases where the person is known to the survivor, but it hasn’t been so effective that we can see where, for instance, it might not be an individual tweet or Facebook message but a number of people attacking someone over multiple days and multiple posts,” de Ronde says.

Whether people in public-facing positions have the same protection as private individuals, and whether the threshold for harm is appropriate, are also areas Amnesty International would like reviewed.

In April, the Auckland High Court overturned a district court judgement that a man who posted explicit images of his ex-wife on Facebook, shouldn’t be convicted under the HDC Act because there wasn’t enough evidence that harm was caused to the woman.

“The [district court] judge had taken the interpretation of harm in quite a narrow view,” de Ronde says.

While initial debate around the HDC Act was focused on technology and civil liberties, with bullying of children a core reason for enacting the act, de Ronde says in reality many taking cases to Netsafe or the courts are people experiencing abuse in their partnerships.

“What hadn’t been considered is that this would be an important piece of legislation for people who were in domestic partnerships. People whose partners had shared revenge porn has been one of the primary charges brought using this legislation.”

Revenge porn is a key focus for police in their criminal prosecutions under the HDC Act. Official figures show police prosecuted 176 cases in the first 18 months under the act, the majority for revenge porn, with sentences of up to 11 months handed out.

While Cocker says the law treats revenge porn as the worst of HDC content, he says all of the things Netsafe deals with on a day-to-day basis are “by and large unnecessary communication”.

Netsafe works with industry partners to get the offending content removed, as well as advising people about the ban, block and delete tools available, and about other steps they can take. Talking to the person who produced the offensive content and advising them of the law to “enable them to take remedial steps voluntarily” is also an option.

It doesn’t always work though. Around four percent of cases – often disputes in which harmful digital communication is only one part – fail to get resolved, and the offended party considers legal options. Few follow through to court, however.

But, Cocker says, New Zealand has done more than most other countries to prevent online abuse.

“Could more resources be spent on online safety and would that have a flow-on effect to more positive outcomes? Absolutely.

“But if you were going to give the government a review, you would score them higher than governments in other countries at this stage.”

While we have Netsafe, Australia has a politically appointed eSafety Commissioner, with formal powers to reprimand. Ireland is also considering creating such a position.

“In general, the New Zealand government gives Netsafe quite a bit of flexibility, and for us that has been a very successful model,” Cocker says. “But I can also see the benefits of the commissioner model.”

Multinationals such as Facebook, Google and Twitter have bases in Ireland, “so it may make sense to have a stronger, more aggressive regulator in that country because they have jurisdiction over the companies they would aggressively regulate.”

Cocker says all of the big name players work “very constructively” with Netsafe. “They do their best to comply with us, and it’s important to recognise that we have no jurisdiction over them.

“Organisations like Facebook, Google and Twitter are relatively young companies who still have some learning to do in terms of how they create a trusted, safe environment for people to operate in.

“But, by and large, that is their objective, as much as it is ours. They want their users to trust the environment, be safe and return on a daily basis because they enjoy their experience.”

"People whose partners had shared

revenge porn has been one of the primary

charges brought using this legislation"

Meg de RondeAMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

CAMPAIGNS DIRECTOR

Rant | RWC 2019

SKY WON’T BE TOO RATTLED about losing the Rugby World Cup (RWC) rights to Spark and TVNZ. These would have been a nice-to-have but are not critical for Sky. However, this is the thin end of a wedge when it comes to possible long-term broadcasting wins for fibre providers and retailers. Or not…

Sky’s financial model – as with most Pay TV providers – is based on annual revenues that flow from events taking place throughout the year such as live All Black test matches, rather than one-off revenue spikes from events like the RWC and the Olympics. Indeed, Sky said as much when commenting on the Spark/TVNZ win.

Sky also confirmed the critical role live sports rights play when it said it had a “strong lock on the key sporting rights that are significant drivers of subscription activity.”

These are the rights to live rugby test matches and cricket that don’t expire until the early 2020s. Move that “strong lock” on to fibre (and VDSL and, perhaps, 5G later on) and we can expect consumers to be clamouring for fast internet connections so as to get premium live sports. This is the content many regulators say is key input content that can be used to get a strong market position and harm competition.

Last year, the Commerce Commission said “the vast majority of Sky subscribers watch Sky’s premium live sports content on Sky Sport.” Live sport dominates when it comes to why consumers buy Pay TV services. If that content were provided over the internet this would result in a radical jump in fibre uptake.

Michael Wigley is a solicitor and heavily involved in telecommunications. Disclosure: he acted for the parties opposing the Vodafone and Sky merger application

RUGBY RIGHTS BATTLE FIRST SKIRMISH IN LOOMING FIBRE

BROADCAST STRUGGLE Michael Wigley

However, as the Spark–TVNZ deal shows, footie followers without fast internet will be left out in the cold when it comes to RWC 2019. And plenty will still not have fast internet come renewal time in the early 2020s. That’s a problem and there is no easy solution for these rural rugby followers wanting to view live sports. You can’t realistically broadcast over free-to-air television just to these regions. So, Sky, or another satellite provider, may still have leverage because it can reach everyone.

So far, regional New Zealand’s reaction around many areas not being able to view RWC games has been fairly muted, but when the reality hits next year people will be more vocal.

Even if the broadcasting rights go to fibre and other fast internet services, much will depend on who gets these rights – and what they must do to get them.

This issue is set to dominate the telecoms industry in the coming years, and it will impact hugely on the revenues of all telcos, both network and retail.

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