Ihug leads wireless challenge to Telecom

By PAUL BRISLEN

More than 150,000 households in Auckland and Hamilton will be able to get cheaper phone calls and super-fast internet access from a new wireless service setting up in competition to Telecom.

Counties Power, the electricity lines company based in Franklin District, has built a wireless telecommunications network that is offering services to anyone who can see the Sky Tower and is within 12km of the city centre.

Hamiltonians don't miss out either - anyone who can see the Waikato Hospital can receive the new service, which promises to shake up the telecommunications market with an aggressive pricing plan.

Auckland internet provider ihug is selling the service to customers and promises to undercut Telecom from day one. Country manager Guy Nelson said the company would target customers of Telecom's smart services such as call minder or caller ID.

"If you look at Telecom's pricing they charge $9.95 a month for call minder. We charge $9.95 for all of our services including features Telecom doesn't offer."

Ihug's 10 smart services include caller ID, call forwarding, call waiting, call hold, do not disturb and "distinctive ring tone" which Mr Nelson said was ideal for families with teenagers.

"You can set it up so if your children's friends are calling, the phone will ring differently so you know it's for them and can ignore it."

Ihug also offers free local calls as well as toll and international calls and internet access at a range of speeds from slow through to one of the fastest services in the country.

By way of contrast with Telecom's services, Mr Nelson said the average user who had both voice services and broadband internet access with ihug would save more than $50 a month on a similar service offering from Telecom.

Counties Power managing director Neil Simmonds said that trial users were extremely happy with the service and uptake rates even without advertising were phenomenal.

Although he wouldn't give user numbers, he said he was more than happy with the total.

"We've just installed one month's worth of connections in one day."

Mr Simmonds said his biggest fear was that hundreds of thousands of customers signed up for the service in the first week.

"It might take us a couple of weeks to get everyone on board."

The service requires a new antenna on the customer's roof.

However, instead of a satellite dish the ihug antenna is a flat plastic panel that is aimed at the Sky Tower.

The antenna is connected to the customer's computer and to the main telephone jack point inside the house.

From there the customer can use existing telephones at any of the points around the house and still access all the services on offer.

One drawback of the service is the need to swap to a new phone number.

Number portability and the ability to change phone providers but keep the same phone number has been an issue for the industry for most of a decade and has yet to be resolved.