Clear narrows focus to speed online business

By RICHARD BRADDELL

No longer "the victim," Clear Communications says it has changed its culture, pulled itself up by the scruff of the neck, and refocused on an online strategy aimed at business and consumer segments.

"We are not going to do everything," said marketing and online services director Ian Scherger.

"We are not going to be a victim-oriented company and we are not going to be a Telecom wannabe."

In the past year, since British Telecom took full control, Clear has undergone huge restructuring, trimming its projects from 800 to less than 100.

Mr Scherger was marketing manager at Xtra before joining Clear a year ago.

He said the bulk of $30 million losses reported for the March year had been chalked up in the first half. Clear had gradually returned to profitability, which had been achieved in the first quarter of this year.

"We are about to be in business for 10 years and that's an incredibly significant feat because in other parts of the world, generally, the first challenger to the incumbent monopoly has had the hell beaten out of them and often not survived the experience," Mr Scherger said.

Clear yesterday announced a new high-speed wireless internet service which will compete head-to-head with services targeted at business customers offered by Walker Wireless, although it will not be used for voice traffic.

Based on the unlicensed 2.4 GHz frequency band, it will offer speeds up to 2Mbps in both directions, complementing existing fibre optic and LMDS wireless services.

In the current year, Clear will invest $209 million in new infrastructure, or half the total in the preceding nine years.

It is tackling the online payments market with PaySafe, a real-time credit card certification, authorisation and payment system.

Launched in August, it has already handled 5091 transactions worth $700,000 and is claiming rapid uptake by merchants.

Revenue for IP Express, Clear's high-speed internet service, has grown 150 per cent in the past three months and customers 160 per cent.

But the part of Clear's business attracting the most comment is Zfree, the free dial-up internet service aimed at the consumer market. Despite suspicions that the business case is built on interconnection revenue payable by Telecom for internet calls to Clear's network, Mr Scherger maintained this was not the case.

Zfree is signing up 1000 customers a day and now has 170,000, of whom between 50 and 60 per cent are active.

Echoing comments by Lucent Technologies at a conference in Hong Kong last week, that telcos would have to look to selling services rather than time, distance and bandwidth, Mr Scherger said Zfree had the scale to attract marketers wanting to communicate, interact and transact with online subscribers.