KEY POINTS:
Government-owned broadcasting and technology company Kordia is making a play for a slice of the burgeoning New Zealand wi-fi wireless network market, estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars over the next few years.
Kordia, which changed its name from Broadcast Communications in November, has signed
a distribution deal with Auckland-based wi-fi network specialist RoamAD.
Under the deal Kordia will sell RoamAD's wi-fi software technology to corporate clients within New Zealand wanting to build their own networks. It will also maintain the networks.
Internationally, wireless wi-fi has become increasingly popular for large companies and other institutions wanting wireless computing and telecommunications networks for their users.
As well as offering wireless broadband connectivity, a wi-fi network can act as a cost-saving alternative mobile phone network. Wi-fi-enabled mobile phones can switch to the cheaper wi-fi network when the user is within the network's range.
Telco companies, including Telecom, have also been developing wi-fi based networks and, overseas, municipal authorities are investing in, or encouraging, the development of citywide wi-fi networks as a means of increasing the uptake of broadband.
RoamAD chief executive Martyn Levy said while wi-fi network uptake had been slow in New Zealand compared to many markets overseas, "the option now is to bring metro wi-fi to New Zealand as a low cost standards-based broadband solution".
The first success of RoamAD and Kordia's partnership has been winning a contract to build and manage a campus wi-fi network at Hawkes Bay's Eastern Institute of Technology. It is expected to be completed within two months.
"Kordia has decided that it's time to push metro wi-fi into New Zealand in a big way in 2007-08," Levy said. "We've got our first win as a product that they're distributing [the EIT deal] and there are some other initiatives in progress."
Kordia chief executive Geoff Hunt said metro wi-fi technology had opened up a US$3 billion ($4.3 billion) market in the US alone, with year-on-year growth of 100 per cent.
The New Zealand market would be worth tens of millions of dollars over the next few years.
"We're getting a fairly high degree of interest from other campus-type organisations and in some downtown areas so I'd like to think over the next few months we'll be talking about some other successes we've had in [winning contracts in] this area," Hunt said.
Kordia, which provides television and radio broadcast facilities through its nationwide telecommunications network, was one of the bidders for internet service provider (ISP) ihug last year. While ihug was bought by Vodafone for $41 million, Hunt said an ISP acquisition was still a priority for Kordia.