KEY POINTS:
State-owned technology infrastructure company Kordia is about to launch a new digital radio-telephone service, the latest in a spree of recent expansions aimed at diversifying its traditional broadcast engineering business.
The SOE's new two-way RT network, branded KorKor, will be launched next week and will be the country's first fully-digital, multi-city commercial network targeted at businesses and government agencies.
Kordia hopes the network's advanced technology - including the ability to monitor staff movements using GPS satellite tracking of their RT equipment - will appeal to a full range of organisations with mobile workforces, from small trades and service businesses through to large government agencies.
KorKor is based on an international communications standard called Tetra (Terrestrial Trunk Radio) which is used in more than 100 countries.
As well as GPS-tracking, digital RT networks have other benefits over older analogue "push-to-talk" radio networks, including the ability to send text messages and images between users, better security and an emergency button. KorKor equipment can also be used to make and receive calls to and from fixed and mobile phones.
Kordia was previously THL Group which included BCL, a government-owned engineering business specialising in building and maintaining television and radio transmission networks.
Chief executive Geoff Hunt said Kordia was nearing the end of a programme of network investments as it moved to diversify its business before analogue television transmission is phased out in a few years' time.
That diversification has included buying internet service provider Orcon for $24.3 million in 2007, launching a wi-fi service, a maritime vessel tracking system and working up a business case for a second transtasman fibre-optic communications cable in partnership with Australian company PIPE Networks.
Hunt said the KorKor network would initially cover Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch and involved a partnership with equipment maker Motorola.
"We're using our existing towers for the antennas and transmitter-receiver sets, and our existing communications infrastructure, so it's a nice add-on to our existing infrastructure," he said.
"It fills a gap that we saw in the market. Nobody else was providing a digital two-way radio service, so it looked like an attractive business opportunity."
Hunt would not say how much Kordia had spent building the network but said it was a significant amount.
KorKor's network coverage would be expanded to other parts of the country "as demand requires".
Kordia has yet to sign up any customers for KorKor, but business manager Aaron Olphert said: "At the moment we have some very strong interest from some parties that we're working closely with."
Potential customers for the new network include utility and transport companies, ports, security firms, local authorities and central government agencies that make heavy use of mobile communications such as the Customs Service.
One government agency not on the list of potential users is the Police Department, which is in the process of migrating from an analogue radio system to a digital system run over its own dedicated network.
Kordia said it would sell access to the KorKor network through four different monthly plans based on whether customers wanted to use just basic RT services or some of the system's other calling and tracking features.
Hunt said he did not think the present harsh economic times would be an impediment to signing businesses up for the new technology, because the service would make good economic sense to many organisations.
"This is a productivity enhancement tool, so it's a means by which businesses can take costs out [of their operation]. So it's the right product for the times."
KORDIA
* State-owned enterprise previously known as THL Group.
* Looking to diversify away from its traditional broadcast engineering specialty.
* Owns internet service provider Orcon.
* Part of a wi-fi public-private partnership with Auckland City Council.
* Pushing a business case to lay a second transtasman fibre-optic cable.
