By Adam Gifford
As Telecom moves to capture more revenue off Internet traffic, a Wellsford entrepreneur is striking back with a plan to bring the Internet to pub and cafe patrons for free.
Wayby Telecommunications director Evan Read claims his earlier efforts to bring cheap calls to communities from Whangaparaoa to Wellsford
were stymied when Telecom backed away from an agreement to provide services which can be resold.
"With the technology available now, we no longer need Telecom to go the last mile," Mr Read said.
The pub Internet scheme has been trialed for the past fortnight at Tonic on the corner of Symonds Street and Newton Road in Auckland city centre, and Mr Read said its backers aim to have it in 1000 venues by the end of the year.
It is part of a bundle of Internet-related technologies that Wayby Telecommunications and an associated technology marketing company, Alternative Futures Limited (AFL), are attempting to bundle together.
Mr Read describes Wayby (pronounced way-bee) as the test marketing arm for technologies offered by AFL.
The idea is that the bar buys a set-top box, marketed by Wayby, which allows it access to the Internet through a normal television.
Patrons use a remote control to surf, or a keyboard connected by infra-red to write e-mail.
The box Wayby is currently offering is the WebPal from NewCom, costing about $1000. Mr Read said the difference from the United States price of about $US300 is because "it's a low volume market here".
To be in the scheme, a bar is required to pay ISP connection charges, taking advantage of flat rate deals, and keep Internet access free.
Mr Read claimed it is a win-win-win situation.
"It's a win for the bar, which gets increased revenue. It's a win for the customers because they get services free. And it's a win for us because we sell a unit."
"There are a few losers, but none in this bar," he said at the launch last Friday.
He said the aim of providing free public Internet access was "to promote what is our eventual goal, which is to remove the toll cost of all communications, including the Internet. New Zealand in two years will be a toll-free area."
Ubiquitous free Internet access makes electronic commerce a major force, and the Wayby-AFL group think they have the technologies to cash in.
Also unveiled at Tonic on Friday was ShopNZ, a shopping web site Mr Read claimed was "an ecommerce-enabled search engine which will not only redefine ecommerce in the 21st century, but will in the future make the Internet less complicated and easier to find real information".
Despite the build up, www.shopnz.cc is a fairly standard directory site. Site developer Rod Stitchbury said ShopNZ is offering it as a portal on which retailers and service providers can list their pages for a monthly fee and set-up charges.
The .cc domain, which belongs to the Australian external territory of the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, allows a complete spread of domain names to be registered - shopus.cc, shopuk.cc and so on.
Mr Read has high hopes for the version two release of the ShopNZ software on August 1.
"If you go to one e-commerce site, you perform actions one way. At another site you do it differently. We intend to standardise e-commerce on the net."
He said while that is a big ask, AFL has senior management experience few other Internet companies could muster.
It also claims to be talking to Australian backers with deep pockets, technical expertise and "international bandwidth".
By Adam Gifford
As Telecom moves to capture more revenue off Internet traffic, a Wellsford entrepreneur is striking back with a plan to bring the Internet to pub and cafe patrons for free.
Wayby Telecommunications director Evan Read claims his earlier efforts to bring cheap calls to communities from Whangaparaoa to Wellsford
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