KEY POINTS:
The numbers had thinned out at the TUANZ telecommunications summit by the time Wellington entrepreneur Rod Drury rose to give his mid-afternoon address.
That's a shame, because the people who run the companies we depend on to deliver the telephone and internet infrastructure that has become so crucial to our economy, really need to hear what he had to say.
Just back from Wales where he got first hand experience of the efforts the Government is making to grow hi-tech investment there, Drury said he felt "sick to his stomach" when he realised how little our country is doing in comparison. Drury feels we are being left behind in our efforts to develop a knowledge economy.
"We're trapped, we're inwardly focused," said Drury, the founder of IT software companies Aftermail and Xero.
"Our market situation is not letting New Zealand exploit the global economy."
By market situation, he is refering to the shape of the telecoms industry. Drury seemed exasperated by the attitudes expressed by the telco bosses who spoke before him and were pre-occupied with the intricacies of regulation.
"There was no talk of economic development," said Drury who contends that by developing a national, open-access broadband network funded by the Government, many of the barriers to investment inherent in companies guided by profit-hungry shareholders will be removed.
"The central Government should be responsible for the connections between our cities and the world," he said, criticising the telcos for not doing enough to create innovative products that could be sold overseas.
"I'd like to see a lot more incubators from the carriers...it's very hard to partner with them," he said.
Drury's proposal for a national, open-access network linking the cities and open to all providers hasn't got much traction in the industry or in political circles. His plan may not be perfect, but he's right when he says: "there's no alternative, the existing model is tied up in regulation".
Richard Prebble, who engineered the sale of Telecom and spoke after Drury, has come to the same conclusion: "We're about to turn away and put our faith in regulation when it was regulation that defeated my vision," he told the conference.
Prebble believes the telecoms industry and New Zealand in general has suffered from bad management in business.
"New Zealand management is not as good as we like to think," said Prebble who believes Telecom's management under Chairman Sir Ron Trotter and Dr. Peter Troughton was sound but that it has since deteriorated.
What Drury is really criticising is the lack of vision in the telecoms sector, where the majority of players are bogged down in a regulatory process that's dragged on for years. I've been to many of these industry conferences and while the executives come and go, the message stays the same: Telecom's competitors can't get a toe-hold in their battle against Telecom and they don't see the situation improving greatly any time soon.
Telecom, for its part, does a stunning job at appeasement. Where is the leadership looking for compelling alternatives, thinking about the bigger picture, the economic development that will allow them to grow their businesses while benefiting the whole country?
I agree with Drury - make a big call, at a national level and do something that will make a difference. Spend some serious money if necessary. As a tax payer I'm more than happy to contribute.
"Say it's two to three billion [dollars] to put fibre to the node and to put a big pipe to Japan or somewhere else. We just pay for it," says Drury.
His thinking may appear over-simplistic but it also has the type of clarity that allows these big issues to begin to be tackled.
