Bid to end net kiosk row

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Shopping centre developer Westfield Trust and Auckland's Zip Internet will make an eleventh-hour bid this week to defuse a row over the siting of internet terminals.

The two have been negotiating an agreement for Zip to install kiosks at 11 Westfield shopping centres.

Zip sales and marketing director Rajiv Bhandari said his company had installed five kiosks. But it refused to sign a contract which gave Westfield the right to re-locate the terminals and made Zip liable for the re-installation costs.

"If we signed the agreement with Westfield, we would have been left with no option but to accept all the kiosk locations provided to us irrespective of their foot-traffic," he said.

Unlike other internet kiosk firms which operate on a revenue sharing system, Penrose-based Zip pays property owners a rental of up to $900 a month according to the prominence of a site.

"If we are paying money we should at least be given a good location where we can establish the net kiosk concept," Mr Bhandari said.

The row came to a head this month when Westfield removed one of Zip's terminals from a prime spot in the food court at the St Lukes shopping centre in Auckland to make way for a hoarding.

Mr Bhandari said the kiosk was moved to a quiet part of the shopping centre with few passing shoppers and without a Telecom phone line, which was required for the kiosk's JetStream broadband internet connection.

Mr Bhandari received an email from Westfield national manager Jane Poole telling him that all Zip's kiosks would be removed by the end of the month unless a contract was signed.

Mr Bhandari said the kiosk at St Lukes was damaged and had been disconnected for two weeks.

He said no similar problems had arisen at the 30 other sites Zip operated in partnership with property owners in Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington.

Westfield spokeswoman Sue Warren said the kiosk at St Lukes was part of a trial on a month by month basis and Westfield wanted to formalise the contract.

"We have been trying to resolve this issue since the contract went out for signing in November, but it's fair to say we have reached a bit of an impasse."

Ms Warren said Westfield was owed more than $5000 in unpaid rent for the kiosks, including the one at St Lukes.

"No rent has ever been paid there," she said.

Mr Bhandari said the payments had been stopped until the location issue was settled.