John Linton
I've commented several times over the past few weeks on the ups and downs (almost all downs) of trying to find a 3G delivery infrastucture for data at an affordable price - all current investigations have proved negative and a waste of time to date. I, therefore, didn't know what to make of the report in yesterdays SMH (Business Section - page 29) of the likely takeover of Unwired by Channel 7 via its controlling ownership of the voip provider - Engin.
Channel 7 bought in to Unwired (via Engin) and acquired a 10.4% stake buying at 20% over the previous trading price to acquire that amount of shares in an illiquid stock 2 - 3 weeks ago and has now increased that stake to almost 20% by, again, paying a premium to acquire the shares.
It's pretty easy to understand why a voip provider would see both synergy and commercial sense in acquiring a non-wire line service over which to offer its services; though buying major network infrastructure for voip did seem to be taking a very long view and a big investment for a tiny revenue base that Engin represents. So it appeared highly likely that was always something else that Channel 7 had in mind.
But.........
This was the statement, ascribed to a Mark McDonnell a media analyst at BBY, in the article that I had a great deal of trouble understanding:
"Seven has committed to multi-channelling. Internet-based (sic) video distribution is clearly a further means for (sic) developing a multi-channel alternative to pay-TV and Unwired has significant (sic) amount of spectrum that would be suitable for that."
Is that comment meant to mean that Channel 7 thinks WiMAx is suitable for delivering DVD or better quality streaming TV at a realistic cost?
If it does (and I struggle to really believe that's what it meant) then what is it I don't understand about:
a) The amount of bandwidth actually available in any location to deliver some sort of spread spectrum (or whatever the correct term is) signal.
b) The cost of enough bandwidth to deliver multi-channel TV signal over that bandwidth at an affordable cost to the end user.
c) If there's a whole new concept of how WiMax can be used in some sort of multicast way (like satellite) that allows such an end solution over WiMax why hasn't Unwired and Austar already started to put it in place/yell it from the rooftops in their coverage areas?.
I suppose it'll all become clear in the future if Channel 7 do take over Unwired and announce, in some measure, what their plans are for using the spectrum.
Certainly Channel 7 would make an interesting new network provider and, with their TV content plus a viable residential voip service and an affordable data service could actually deliver the much loved new concept of 'triple play'.
Makes you think that the Packer and Murdoch investments in the One.Tel 3G network some years back wasn't really such a silly mistake - just a few years too soon (and a few hundred million dollars too expensive for the spectrum)?