Perth to be first with 'Unwired' mobile WiMAX service

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 02 September 2009 08:59

IT Industry - Strategy

The long-awaited launch of mobile WiMAX services by Seven Network subsidiary, Unwired Australia, will take place in Perth in March next year but with Unwired relegated to the role of network builder and operator and a new Seven subsidiary, Vividwireless responsible for all marketing and customer facing responsibilities.

The former executive director of marketing for Telstra's Consumer business, Martin Mercer, has been appointed CEO of Vivid and Huawei has been named as the network supplier and principal CPE supplier.

Mercer told iTWire that the company expected to have coverage of the whole Perth metropolitan area at launch from 150 base stations, and that site acquisitions were already well underway." We have already acquired sites and we have a full team on the ground deploying the network."

Vivid is promising average downstream bandwidths of 4Mbps and peaks in excess of 20Mbps from dongle-equipped laptops and in excess of 30Mbps from terminals with fixed antennas. Mercer said negotiations were underway with terminal suppliers in addition to Huawei.

Mercer said prices would be competitive with terrestrial broadband and "very competitive with 3G mobile broadband offerings." He said the primary target market would be "the rapidly growing base of mobile broadband customers...it is always easy to capture growth than to take customers away from an existing supplier....but over time we expect to become a very credible fixed broadband replacement offering."

He promised that "plans for consumers [will be] straightforward and transparent with no tricky 'tie-you-down' terms and conditions and price points that position the business to win in both the rapidly growing mobile broadband market and the traditional fixed broadband space."

He also suggested that Vivid being able to offer a one-stop-shop would be a selling point that would help it penetrate the fixed broadband market. "When people realise they can have one product and one account for all their broadband needs inside and outside the home they will start moving to us."

Bundled content services from Seven are also likely to feature in the offering. Vivid chairman, Ryan Stokes, said: "The wide application of services allows Seven Network to further strengthen its digital platform connecting broadband users to the Internet and burgeoning multi-media solutions." Seven Network chairman, Kerry Stokes, said: "The network] provides an infrastructure and the ability to deliver new and competing telecommunications, data and content services to all Australians."

Mercer said Vivid was launching in Perth because "Perth is a contained market and relatively underserved. It has been rather neglected by Telstra, Optus and Vodafone and it is very hospitable environment for wireless. And the Seven Network has a very deep understating of the Perth market."

Mercer said that Vividwireless presently had 12 employees and would have about 50 when its call centre starts operating, and the number would "grow rapidly after that." It has also hired industry veteran Max Trochei who was involved in the early rollout of the Vodafone network in Australia to be responsible for end to end delivery across both the Unwired and Vivid components of the service.

"We will launch a brand and advertising campaign in February and start taking registration of interest," he said.

Unwired will retain responsibility for customers on its Sydney and Melbourne pre-WiMAX networks.