Adventurer ready for brave new world

Andrew Crabb keeps his cards close to his chest outside TelstraClear's Takapuna HQ. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Asking TelstraClear's chief information officer, Andrew Crabb, about the number two telco's investment plans is a bit like interrogating Santa about what you're getting for Christmas.

Ho, ho, ho. Can't possibly tell you, but it will be good. Except that in Crabb's case the jovial brush-off is given in a South Australian accent.

Crabb has been in the job only six months, but it probably feels longer - for several reasons.

The 42-year-old is no stranger to TelstraClear.

He's spent the past 10 years with parent company Telstra, including an intensive 18 months in New Zealand when Telstra was doing due diligence on what was then Clear Communications.

Crabb stayed to help bed down the newly acquired business.

This latest stint back across the ditch has been no less intensive, with Crabb arriving midway through a company restructuring and shortly before the Government's ground-breaking decision to unbundle Telecom's local loop.

"I came in the middle of when we were doing a restructure so the first couple of months were tied up with sorting that out. But I wasn't unfamiliar with the business, obviously, having been here before.

"With the legislative changes that have been afoot, the future's looking very bright and there are a lot of opportunities - it's a case of where do we want to focus."

But Crabb is not willing to answer his own question. Investment plans after unbundling remain a tight secret, TelstraClear not wanting to show its hand to its competitors.

The big questions are around whether TelstraClear will build a third mobile network or expand its Wellington and Christchurch domestic networks into Auckland. But Crabb points out that the company has continued to invest about $120 million or $130 million a year in its network.

For example it is spending more than $20 million on a South Island backbone network.

It is also upgrading its back-office IT systems, which will result in much better "self-service" systems for customers who will, for example, be able to change their broadband plan over the internet.

That type of efficiency will be a useful tool as the broadband market hots up under unbundling, Crabb says.

Asked about Telecom's investment in an internet protocol (IP) "next-generation network" offering technology-rich features aimed at boosting business productivity through services such as video conferencing, he says: "We're probably better positioned than most in that space.

"We've already got a strong IP network in existence today. It's how we leverage that, and a lot of the places our competitors are talking about going, we're already there."

Telecommunications is undergoing a shake-up as a result of innovations such as voice over internet protocol (VoIP), but again Crabb is not giving too much away.

"VoIP is going to change the way voice is seen in this market and we've got to look at how we play in that space as well." The same goes for business applications such as video conferencing.

"Video conferencing has been around for a while now, and I suppose when you look at the potential it had when it first came out it probably hasn't taken off to the extent that everyone thought it would.

"But it is part of a whole bundle of things and that's on the back of a backbone or a network which is capable of actually providing that, as is VoIP and a whole lot of other things as well."

Crabb says TelstraClear's financial year ends this week so the company is in the process of finalising its next "significant" round of capital expenditure.

A new financial year is coming. So, too, is a possible early Christmas.

ANDREW CRABB

Who: Chief information officer, TelstraClear.

Favourite gadget: "I'm not a real gadget person. I'm a country boy at heart. I like to get outside and get away from the technology whenever possible. You can have my Blackberry, it drives me nuts."

Next big thing: "The groundswell is going to be around broadband and the bandwidth aspects of that."

Alternative career: Running a sailing charter business.

Spare time: The outdoors, tennis, golf.

Favourite sci-fi movie: The original Star Wars trilogy.