Finns, Mongols love our techno-how

The vast land mass of Europe and Asia separate Finland and Mongolia, but the countries have a common interest in New Zealand technology and in trading more technology products with us.

A delegation from Mongolian telecoms operator Newcom Group was in the country last week to look at progress local operators have made in wireless broadband.

On the agenda were visits to Broadcast Communications and Woosh Wireless, companies the Mongolians are looking to for inspiration as they try to counter the lack of copper and fibre telecoms infrastructure in their own country with wireless local loop services.

Newcom's chairman, Ts. Boldbaatar, said it was more relevant for the company to look at the New Zealand example than those in China or Japan - Mongolia's main trading partners and investors.

"We have a small population like New Zealand and our economy is based on agriculture. The South Island looked a lot like the north of Mongolia: a lot of mountains and lakes - even the temperature was similar," he said.

Mongolia has a population of 2.4 million, is bordered by Russia and China and spans 1.5 million sq km.

It's capital, Ulaanbaatar, is reasonably well serviced with fixed-line telephone and mobile service as well as dial-up internet and ADSL.

But outside the capital telecoms infrastructure is limited.

"Wireless local loop is a very good technology for us if we can get the model right because we're not going to lay an expensive cable network," said Boldbaatar.

Newcom controlled Mobicom, a GSM mobile operator which had around 70 per cent of the Mongolian mobile market, which has 300,000 subscribers.

Like New Zealand, Mongolia had two mobile operators - the incumbent using CDMA technology, the rival using GSM. Mongolia was looking to issue a third licence.

"It's interesting they want to do that. We've struggled here to introduce a third operator and we have a much smaller area to cover," said Ian Harris, a Wellington-based telecoms consultant who has been introducing the Mongolians to local companies.

Harris said Newcom was also interested in adding intelligence to the agricultural sector to improve efficiency - another area where it could learn from New Zealand.

"We want to import your knowledge and expertise," said Boldbaatar.

His party was leaving the country as Finland's Trade and Industry Minister, Mauri Pekkarinen, held a conference in Auckland.

Arriving as Finnish mobile equipment maker Nokia carries out final negotiations to build a $400 million 3G mobile network for Vodafone, Pekkarinen said Finland had nurtured high-value sectors and targeted a global market. The Government of Finland had invested heavily in research and development and education after its economy was hit by the collapse of the Soviet Union - a faith Mongolia's economy shared.

The Finnish Government planned to increase research and development spending by €250 million ($478 million) by 2007.

Among the Finnish tech companies pushing to do more business in New Zealand are Environics, a company that makes sensors for detecting deadly gasses, accounting software company Tag Services, and online learning company Sanako Corporation.

Sanako already has clients among New Zealand's educational institutions such as Auckland University.