Telecom close to announcement of Australia 3G service
July 22, 2004
Telecom Corp. of New Zealand is close to announcing a 3G mobile phone service in Australia through its fully-owned Australian unit AAPT. The company is planning to resell Hutchison Telecommunications Australia 3G services.
Telecom paid A$400 million for a 20% share in Hutchison's Australian business in 2001 to ensure the group won't miss out on the 3G. It has been AAPT's long-term intention to resell Hutchison's 3G services and the announcement of the deal is likely within the next couple of months. (£1 = A$2.44)
Australia's Telstra is also in talks with Hutchison over sharing network infrastructure as it prepares to rollout 3G services next year.
Meanwhile, Telecom said it was still open to discussions with Telstra and Vodafone about sharing a 3G mobile network in New Zealand.
Telecom's general manager of corporate affairs Philip King told Dow Jones Newswires that the company is open minded to discussions with either Vodafone or TelstraClear.
"Increasingly, it's not about the network, it's about the applications, content and service, and so network sharing is quite a sensible option in most markets," he said.
Vodafone pulled out of the talks after the company decided to go it alone and has selected Nokia in May to build its 3G mobile network in New Zealand and Australia.
Talks with TelstraClear also broke down because of issues surrounding the commercial terms and complexity of the deal.
In June, Telecom announced it would introduce 3G services in New Zealand based on CDMA2000 1x EV-DO in December. Telecom has set aside about NZ$40 million for the EV-DO upgrade and has picked Lucent Technologies to deploy and manage the network. (£1 = NZ$2.70)
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