Click below to
find interesting
information from our
February 2011
newsletter
relating to:
Roaming
Travel
Mobile phones
Roaming
Kiwi
roaming
at a
high
level
Last week the
Australian and
New Zealand
Prime Ministers
met last week in
Wellington.
After discussing
natural
disasters,
defence and
regional
cooperation, the
two moved onto
Closer Economic
Relations (the
effort to
integrate the
two countries
economically).
The
second item on
the CER agenda
was the need to
establish more
competitive
(meaning
cheaper) roaming
charges. This
issue has been
mostly driven by
the Kiwi side,
and reflects
their continuing
drive to
increase
competitive
intensity in
mobile networks
(they had only
two networks
until recently).
We predict
that roaming
regulation may
eventually
result (there is
almost no reason
for the networks
to be
brow-beaten into
lowering prices
themselves), but
that the
development of
the regulation
may take a long
time (the EU -
the only similar
region
regulating
roaming prices -
took from 1993
to 2007 to
finally cap
roaming prices).
Meanwhile
roaming prices
will stay high.
And of course so
will roaming
prices in all
the other
destinations
throughout Asia,
Africa, Europe
and the
Americas.
So you'll
still need our vSIM
cheaper
post-paid
alternative,
even in NZ.
Travel
New
airplanes
Airbus
and
Boeing
dominate
the
aircraft
market
and have
spent
the last
decade
fighting
over the
medium-large
widebody
(two
aisles)
airliner
market,
with
their
new
designs
A380,
A350 and
787.
Their
best-sellers,
however, are the
narrow-body A320
and 737 aircraft
families, which
are now getting
a little long in
the tooth. New
engine
technology
(geared-fan
turbines) can
save around 15%
of fuel burn,
and both Boeing
and Airbus have
now announced
their
replacement
plans.
For Airbus,
that means a
minimal rework
of the current
A320 (to be
called the
A320neo), but
things are more
complicated for
Boeing. The 737
has a short
undercarriage
which cannot
allow
larger-diameter
new engines (the
current smaller
engines had to
be "squashed" to
fit), but for
the next
generation
Boeing has now
announced a
complete
redesign of the
737. Presumably
this will
incorporate a
large amount of
composite
materials and be
a radical new
shape.
Of course,
this all takes
time. Don't
expect to see
the new aircraft
launch before
2016 (Airbus) or
perhaps 2021
(Boeing).
Mobile phones
Non-shipping
tablets
There have
been a rash of
new tablet
devices
announced by
manufacturers to
compete with the
success of
Apple's iPad
device.
Manufacturers
announcing
tablets include
RIM (BlackBerry
Playbook), Cisco
(Cius), Dell
(Streak), HP
(Slate and
PalmPad),
Toshiba (Folio),
LG (Optimus and
UX10), Acer
(Tablet), and
even MicroSoft
and Google (no
names yet).
Curiously,
however, most
are actually not
available to
customers.
Contacting the
networks is
futile as they
will simply say
the
manufacturers
haven't shipped
the devices yet.
What is going
on?
We suspect
there is a
degree of
vapourware
happening here,
with
manufacturers
prematurely
announcing
devices to build
demand before
the tablets are
actually ready.
But speculation
has arisen that
manufacturers
cannot get some
critical
components (in
particular the
glass
capacitative
touchscreens) as
Apple has
apparently
cornered a major
proportion of
the available
supply from two
key Taiwanese
manufacturers (Wintek
and TPK),
meaning that
other
manufacturers
simply cannot
manufacture
their proposed
tablets.
We may have
to wait longer
for our
touchscreen
tablets to ship!
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