KERRY Stokes has cemented his position as Australia’s multimedia mogul, after his Seven Network yesterday announced a shake-up to Australia’s $30 billion a year telecoms sector by launching the nation’s first 4G wireless broadband network.
The Seven Network has funnelled $50 million into a new subsidiary named Vividwireless to launch a fourth generation (4G) wireless broadband network capable of internet speeds up to 10 times faster than current 3G networks.
“We believe in 4G as it provides an infrastructure and the ability to deliver new and competing telecommunications, data and content services to all Australians,” Mr Stokes said.
The launch of the super-fast wireless network will give Mr Stokes – who counts newspapers, magazines and television networks as feathers in his multimedia cap – a new avenue to drive content to consumers. Mr Stokes’s son and Seven director Ryan Stokes will be the new company’s chairman.
The network rollout – which will be built, designed and operated by struggling Seven subsidiary Unwired – will begin in Perth and will potentially be extended to other state capitals based on its success or failure, Vividwireless chief executive Martin Mercer said.
“We certainly have our eyes on the rest of the country, but we first plan to get some good experience in Perth and to make sure the market is ready before we go national,” Mr Mercer said.
He said Perth was selected as the initial location because it was a market under-served by broadband infrastructure.
But the city’s hunger for broadband is not the only attractive proposition the city has to offer. With Mr Stokes’ majority control of the near-monopoly newspaper The West Australian, his broadcast power with the Seven Network and now with a new super-fast internet delivery medium to push through content, the city has shaped up to be the perfect launch pad for an integrated media strategy for the media mogul.
It is expected the rollout will be completed early next year, with first services for consumers ready for launch in March next year.
“Our focus is on wireless broadband because it’s the exploding part of the market and it’s typically neglected by the main players. Telstra for example outprices most people from using this technology,” Mr Mercer said.
Pricing for the service will be disclosed when Vividwireless launches next year, but Mr Mercer said offers would be very competitive in both mobile and fixed broadband prices.
Mr Mercer also said that he did not expect the company’s offerings to directly compete with the federal government’s plans to build a $43bn fibre-to-the-home national broadband network.
Mr Mercer said consumer services for Vividwireless would be in excess of 20 megabits per second with average speeds hitting at least 4Mbps. In comparison the government’s NBN has promised speeds of up to 100Mbps.
“I see wireless and the NBN as being complementary services. Obviously, the NBN will be a fixed service with very high internet speeds, but people can’t take the NBN with them, so they will still want a wireless solution which is where we fit in,” Mr Mercer said.
