KEY POINTS:
Outspoken Japanese telecoms entrepreneur Sachio Semmoto does not confine his feisty criticism of out-dated broadband platforms to his home country.
In Tokyo recently, Semmoto revealed he had advised Prime Minister Helen Clark three years ago that New Zealand's broadband service was "pitiful".
The PM had apparently praised previous
Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung's performance, but Semmoto's contention was that any CEO who did not ensure the nation's broadband infrastructure was fast enough and with sufficient bandwidth to enable New Zealand's high-tech industry to carry out business from here should not be in the job.
He advised Helen Clark that the Government needed to do something about Telecom by introducing competition, and as Gattung moved on, he got in touch with Paul Reynolds, whose performance he had admired at BT, and strongly pushed him to take on the job.
Semmoto praises Communications Minister David Cunliffe for tackling Telecom. "It had to be done".
But he's critical of the Government's recent Budget announcements: The $340 million Digital Pathway Fund will still not be sufficient to fast forward the switch in emphasis needed to get New Zealand on to a better broadband platform, he says. Its focus on fibre - when many advanced societies are switching to greater use of mobile technologies - needs to be balanced.
New Zealand will simply "get killed" if it does not tackle such issues swiftly and build a speedy information highway to connect to nations with which it wants to do business.
Semmoto also delivered the latter message to the recent Japan New Zealand Partnership Forum where he urged New Zealand businesses to lift the level of their ambition. To be more like Finland with its focus on hi-tech innovations and to be "more independent" and take less notice of the gap with Australia.
"Your young people should want to build great companies from New Zealand - not go overseas."
Google the name Sachio Semmoto and the epithets that come up most often are "serial entrepreneur" or "the Mobile Samurai".
The Economist credits the feisty entrepreneur as a major force in reshaping Japan's telecommunications industry.
The Semmoto legend began inauspiciously enough when he was a Fulbright scholar in Florida. He had been sent there from Government-owned Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in the 1970s to get a doctorate. But was confronted with culture shock when fellow students sneered at NTT as a bloated monopoly.
A decade later he left NTT to start a rival company - KDDI - as Japan deregulated its telecommunications market. That company is now Japan's second-largest telecoms operator.
Semmoto later spent time as a business professor.
But by the end of the 1990s the Japanese telecoms market had plateaued. Internet usage was half that of America and prices were high. So Semmoto launched broadband company eAccess getting 15 per cent of the market within a few years and providing the competitive spur to ensure prices were halved. The company is publicly listed.
Along the way he formed a connection with Christchurch where he and his wife Sachiko (Frances) bought a house in the Cashmere hills.
Christchurch was in the time zone. He can get a game of golf in before business opens in Tokyo at 9am, there is a direct flight (he can sleep overnight and awake refreshed), it has good facilities, gardens and climate. Perfect for the pair to spend up to three months of each year enjoying the New Zealand summer and escaping the cold Tokyo winter.
But Semmoto found his ability to conduct business from Christchurch was stymied by slow broadband.
His career also took another turn when he decided - at 62 - to launch eMobile, attacking incumbent operators and sourcing equipment from anywhere (not just Japan).
In the past two years he has spent just 10 to 15 days here each year.
A senior adviser to eMobile says Semmoto is a "disruptive innovator who takes market share, brings down prices, and improves quality".
Semmoto is something of an unofficial ambassador for New Zealand within Japan. He's on the Japan NZ Business Council and is a member of the advisory group for New Zealand's Digital Strategy.
He startled the industry recently when he claimed that WiMax - a high-speed wireless technology - will lose the battle to be the fourth generation mobile "standard of choice". In Tokyo he told the Business Herald that a rival technology - Long term Evolution (LTE) - will ultimately win the race for 4G wireless networks. WiMax and code division multiple access (CDMA) will become minority technologies.
The impact of these fourth-generation telecoms networks are already a reality. That presents countries such as New Zealand with an opportunity to move quickly towards the next technology platforms.
Semmoto's message was far more direct than any of those delivered by other Japanese businesspeople at the Tokyo forum. He sees good opportunities for New Zealand and Japan to forge closer business partnerships where his country's superior infrastructure and established commercial norms make it a good fit for New Zealand entrepreneurs.
But without a first-class internet connection New Zealand will not prosper, he says. It has to be a priority.
Semmoto will come down to Nelson in October for the next meeting of the bilateral business council.
A meeting with John Key has also been floated by one of National's MPs.
It's likely that this behind-the-scenes voice may become more public.
