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By A friend of mine by the name of Brendan Walsh and I made a film called “Hans Up, Betelnut or Your Life!” Now just a couple of hours ago CHM played our movie on their show on Hitron’s Channel 9. Now what the fuck is that??!!! Who the hell gave them the right to show our film without getting Authorisation from us? We weren’t advised nor were we paid anything for them using our film.
Haven’t they been the very ones that have been harping on about Intellectual Property, etc. This is them in the National newspaper earlier this year:
“ “Like many APEC economies and Pacific island countries, piracy has plagued the PNG music industry and for CHM, it meant drop in sales,” Mr Kila [Henry Kila, chairman of the Business Council of PNG addressing the 2007 APEC conference in Port Moresby], said.
And for this reason, the company has embarked on a two-tier strategy identifying the importance of copyright protection.
CHM conducted workshops for stakeholders and such efforts provided a reality check to the stakeholders on the challenges piracy brings to the industry.
“Discussions with them showed that it wasn’t just economic loss from piracy, but the linkage to the negative impacts on investing into creativity,” Mr Kila said.
He said the second CHM strategy was proactive engagement with law enforcement agencies in investigating, prosecuting and constructing punitive measures of copyright infringers.”
What a load of crap! And then more recently the attended a Music Copyright summit in Brisbane where they were guest speakers. And then they go leading raids on music like this:
“The Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies was raided after a month-long Chin Hoi Meen (CHM) led-investigation, following reports that the institute was allegedly producing re-recordings of music recorded years ago….
Mr. Chin went on to say “Our concern is for the music industry. There is so many (pirating, duplication, reproduction) in the music industry and we cannot stop it. The musicians depend on the sales of the cassettes,” Mr Chin said, adding that when the cassettes, after recording are sold, a portion of the sale goes back to the artists and if such activities continue, the artists will lose as they will not benefit from the sales“
So where the hell are our royalties, it may be a film but it sure as hell is the same as music. What a bunch of hypocrites. They can expect a letter tomorrow morning from Narokobi Lawyers.
Long seen as a threat to cellular carriers’ revenues, Internet phone calling will be the basis of a new service from 3 Mobile.
Possible preview?: The interface of the new Skype White Phone remains under wraps. But the device’s developers are collaborating with iSkoot, which already offers Skype support for some cell phones, as pictured here.
Credit:iSkoot
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For all its popularity among computer users, Skype, a service that lets users place cheap phone calls over the Internet, has been a virtual no-show in the fast-growing world of Net-connected mobile phones.
That may be about to change. Britain’s Hutchison 3G U.K., better known as 3 Mobile, is creating a new, custom Skype phone aimed, as one partner in the project says, at making cheap Internet calls on a cell phone as easy as sending e-mails on a BlackBerry.
What’s so radical about making calls on a phone? Skype offers free calls between its subscribers, or bargain-basement prices for international calls that ordinarily bring cell-phone operators big bucks. For this reason, most cell-phone companies have been leery of letting Skype or other Internet calling services onto their phones or networks, fearing that they might undermine revenues.
But the release of a new phone built specifically around Skype would for the first time cast the Net calling service as one of the mobile Internet’s main attractions, and potentially help weaken other cellular operators’ resistance to it.
“This has real potential for getting cheaper calls,” says analyst James Myring, whose U.K.-based firm, Continental Research, has recently documented consumers’ lukewarm response to mobile content offerings. “That’s something people really want, and people will do it, as long as it is easy to use.”
As yet, technical and pricing details on the new device, initially dubbed the White Phone, remain scarce. A Skype spokesman said only that the company is working with the Britain-based mobile-phone operator to create a “new product to make Skype completely mobile,” while 3 Mobile entirely declined to comment.
A top executive for iSkoot, a partner company providing some of the networking technology supporting the phone, confirmed that it is in development but declined to provide specifics. A recent BusinessWeek report describes a customized cell phone with a button automatically activating the Skype application.
Putting this cost-cutting voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) service at cell-phone subscribers’ fingertips could be an attractive way to hold on to customers, particularly 3 Mobile’s core demographic of young, Net-savvy consumers, analysts say. But it’s risky, too.
Like their landline counterparts, cell-phone companies are struggling to protect voice-calling revenues, even as they push their consumers toward high-margin Internet features.
“Undoubtedly, mobile operators see VoIP as a threat, particularly to boundary-crossing revenues, which have been healthy,” says Geoff Blaber, senior analyst at British telecommunications research firm CCS Insight.
Whether mobile Internet telephony will prove financially viable depends on carriers’ customer bases and revenue goals. International calls, while often bruisingly expensive, are typically avoided by mobile customers unless absolutely necessary. Similarly, high cross-border roaming fees are already falling, in part because of new regulations imposed by the European Union.
Meanwhile, carriers around the world are pointing to data services as their fastest-growing business units. Three Mobile, whose business is focused on third-generation, or 3G, data services, is particularly attuned to this market and therefore may have less to lose from Skype than do some of its peers, analysts say.
Skype access is already facilitated by iSkoot software packages available to 3 Mobile users today, and the way it’s handled there may further help lessen carriers’ trepidation.
For instance, although Skype application features such as contact lists and chat windows appear on the phone, the actual network connection isn’t entirely VoIP, explains iSkoot CEO Jacob Guedalia. Instead, a traditional circuit-switched connection is made to the mobile operator’s network, where a call reaches a VoIP gateway to be relayed across the Internet. This configuration keeps customers using traditional network airtime, an issue of deep concern to mobile operators.
Three Mobile’s tightening relationship with Skype seems to be evidence that it has learned two of the wired Net’s most critical lessons for stimulating user growth: make it flat rate, and make it easy.
In consumer surveys, much of the resistance to mobile data services in recent years has stemmed from their complicated pricing, with fees often assessed per feature or per megabyte of data transferred. Only recently have carriers begun moving toward the flat-rate pricing common for PC Internet services (although most carriers still impose a data-transfer cap).
Three Mobile’s existing Skype services offer a look at how the company may treat the new Skype phone. The lowest level of service charges about $10 a month on top of basic voice subscription fees for flat-rate “unlimited” Internet use–which in fact offers about one gigabyte of data transfer and 5,000 Skype-to-Skype minutes, still enough to eliminate most fears of extra charges.
Ease of use may be the trickier part. The tools on Apple’s iPhone aside, many ordinary Web applications have had a rough transition to the mobile phone, and VoIP is no exception, despite 3 Mobile’s earlier work with Skype.
“We need to see a big increase in usability on the device,” says CCS Insight’s Blaber. “So far, it’s still been very cumbersome, with a large degree of know-how and configuration required.”
ISkoot’s Guedalia predicts that the Skype device will assuage these concerns, however. “You can expect it will be a really seamless experience on the White Phone,” he says. “Think about how well e-mail works on the BlackBerry. That’s how well it should work.”
Analysts say it’s too early to predict whether Skype on cell phones will have any genuinely disruptive effect on mobile voice revenues, or further erode landline use already under pressure by Vonage and other Net calling services. Much will depend on whether other operators follow 3 Mobile’s lead, and how the services are priced.
But for Skype, the new market comes at a critical time. Early this month, the service’s parent company, eBay, announced that it would take a $1.4 billion charge against its third-quarter earnings, with about $900 million of that related to lowered revenue expectations for Skype. Essentially, eBay is conceding that it overpaid in its $2.6 billion acquisition of the Net phone service.
With service areas concentrated in Europe and Asia, 3 Mobile is well placed to appeal to Skype’s core paying audience. According to its latest financial statements, fully 83 percent of the Net phone company’s revenues come from non-U.S. sources.
A Skype spokesman said that the new product would mark a “radical step forward in mobilizing Internet calls for a mass market.” Bringing Skype to the market of mobile-phone subscribers, who, according to research firm Informa, number 2.7 billion worldwide, could be a radical improvement in the company’s prospects indeed.
As everyone knows we all have MP3 players now and allot of our music comes from friends PC’s or from burning CD’s. I haven’t bought a music CD for nearly 5 years now, so maybe paying money to record companies is really not the way of the future (duh!).
So a Mike Masnick from Techdirt came up with this suggested business model. he states that when you’re dealing with digital goods, you can’t sell the music as a “good” — they’re not goods in any sense. So, you have to sell services or other tangible goods. And, if you’re selling a service, you never sell past work, you’re always selling future work. So … with that in mind:
* Bands start out the old fashioned way, playing local shows. Building up an audience. They record a few songs (cheaply, thanks to inexpensive digital recording equipment) and use that to get some attention beyond local venues. They’re encouraged to offer the songs as free MP3s and even *want* people to put them on file sharing networks because it gets them attention. They begin to realize that the music file is simply a promotional item for the fact that they make good music. Buzz on file sharing networks is important.
* If they get that wider recognition, they start touring more broadly, playing larger venues. They take the door money, and they sell some merch. Some people will still want CDs, especially if they can be offered cheaply (K5?) and include additional things such as liner notes and lyrics. Notice that Steps 1 and 2 are still the same as they are now (other than if you’re completely manufactured by the recording industry).
* Now is when things get more interesting. You start to offer a “service.” You might call it a fan club, but that has connotations. Let’s call it a “subscription” to the band. When the band is still young and small, the subscription should remain pretty cheap and flexible. Say, you let people pay K10/year (less than the cost of a current CD), and they get benefits: direct contact with band members, early access to recordings, ability to request songs at shows. Give the fans their own special RSS news feed so they can be alerted every time the band has a new song for them to hear. Members also get discounts on tangible goods. T-shirts for 25% off. Actual CDs (with bonus features — movies, games, who knows what) for less than anyone else can buy them. Easy access to recorded concerts right after each show that they can download also would be great.
* The band grows even more, and expands the fan club. They’re playing larger venues, so they reserve the best seats for their members. Members get backstage passes. Maybe even the chance to win a concert in your backyard or something like that. The fan club membership prices rise (though not to ridiculous levels) as the band gets larger. Preferably those fans who joined early get grandfathered in at lower prices (incentive to support young bands).
The bands are now making money from (a) concerts (b) fans who are “subscribed” to their service and (c) still from selling tangible merchandise. Fans get to directly support the bands they like. The actual music can be enjoyed by a wider audience. Digital music files are seen as promotions, and thus a band is more likely to get a wider audience, meaning more people joining their fan club. No, not everyone will join, but so what? Not everyone buys CDs now.
If my choice is to buy 12 K18 CDs a year (one a month, say) or support 20 or so bands at K10/year getting all those extra goodies, guess which one sounds more appealing to me? I’m still spending about the same amount, but I’m getting much much, much more, as are the musicians, themselves.
Now, again, this cuts out some of the industry — but it doesn’t have to entirely. Promotions are still needed. A savvy promotional campaign (understanding the nature of using free MP3s as a promotional tool) would still help. Concert promotions are still important. Setting up tours. Setting up higher quality recordings. All of that. What’s no longer needed is quite the same amount of CD distribution. Contracts would, of course, need to be restructured, since the industry now gets all their money from CD sales and bands end up with most of the touring money.
Horses…I’m terrified of them. Why am I scared of horses? Well I think like most PNG’eans the biggest warm blooded animals we come across are fellow humans at night clubs and nothing as big as a horse!
But I feel safer around horses on TV like the ones at the Melbourne Cup. I have come to understand about horses on TV from hearing fellow punters down at the bookies on Melbourne Cup day. They say that some horses perform better in the rain and some better when it’s sunny and depending on the soil and so on and so on. So perhaps that is essentially the same thing for internet services generally and access to it. As the demand for internet increases and we look further across PNG in providing internet services, different users will require different ways to get on the internet. So you will never have a ’silver bullet’ solution but different horses for different courses.
In PNG today internet can be accessed through the following ways:
- Dial-up (available from all ISP’s); using your phone line to get onto the internet.
- Lease Line (available from Telikom through all ISP’s); having a special internet line brought into your premises for always on internet.
- Wireless broadband (available from all ISP’s); having a wireless antennae installed at your premises so that you can access internet without using the phone lines.
- WiFi (available from selected ISP’s); using your laptop, mobile phone or PDA to get wireless access to the internet in a hotspot like the Yacht Club. WiFi stands for Wireless Fidelity, read more here.
- ADSL (available only from Telikom as the Teli-Net service), is a technology that uses your existing copper phone line to provide faster data transmission for internet services. ADSL stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Read more on ADSL here.
- VSAT (available from Telikom, Hitron and selected ISP’s); using small satellite dishes to access the internet in remote locations. VSAT stands for Very Small Aperture Terminals. Read more on VSAT’s here.
6 different ways to access the internet is encouraging but the majority of the services above are geared towards big to middle business and high income urban homes. Hence the ‘last mile‘ goal of reaching everyone right down to middle to low income urban homes and the small towns and even the villager is still an illusive task.
A suggested addition to the above list could be WiMax, as shown by our friend Asese in Vanuatu. What is WiMAX? It is a technology aimed at providing wireless data over long distances in a variety of ways, from point-to-point links to full mobile cellular type access. WiMAX allows a user, for example, to browse the Internet on a laptop without physically connecting the laptop to the internet via any cables.
The difference between WiMax and WiFi is that with WiFi you are limited in your access to a specific area. For example Daltron’s WiFi hot spots are only located at:
- Latitude 9
- Yacht Club
- Golf Club
- Crowne Plaza
They have access in office buildings as well like:
- Ela Beach Tower
- Deloitte
- Pacific Place
- Monian Tower
- Somare Foundation
- Investwell House
- Level 9 - Compound
But again from the above list you can see my point about the service being limited to big business and high income urban residences.
WiMax as opposed to Wi-Fi has a larger range and acts more like mobile coverage so that wherever you are in a city that has WiMax you can access the internet if you have the wireless cards installed in your laptop or PC’s or even mobile phones and PDA’s.
A Malaysian friend of mine emailed me a news article about WiMAX developments in his country and they made some interesting comments in regards to seeing WiMAX the way we see mobile phone access. The Francis Yeoh of YTLE said
“I look forward to the day very soon when I can use my WiMAX broadband to access the Internet anywhere in the world, the same way I use my GSM phone,” he said.
He added: “As YTLE begins to deploy its network in Malaysia, it recognises that a key component to the success of WiMAX will be roaming, not just for Malaysia but on a global scale.”
I know that we may have to wait a bit before WiMAX or internet roaming on wireless devices happens in PNG. However I believe that it is something to consider for the ‘last mile‘. If PC’s are too expensive for starters then maybe mobile phone’s can come in as an alternative for internet access. Maybe just for emails so that small businesses or low income homes can at least email for work, business and keeping in touch with family. What about the small towns and villagers? Maybe WiMAX and/or WiFi could be an option for them out there, in terms of using mobile internet.
For small towns and villages a hypothetical setup could possibly work like this. A VSAT system is setup to send internet from Port Moresby to Kwikila, Central Province. Then from Kwikila a WiMAX and/or WiFi setup could be used to provide internet to the mobile phones and PC’s in small businesses, homes and villages around that area in a possible radius of a couple 100 kilometres.
Below is just one of many GSM/WiFI phones coming out today that could be used as one access device in our hypothetical WiMAX/WiFI setup.
The Nokia 6136 (launched last year some time) can be used to make VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol, like Skype) calls at WiFi hot spots, allowing them to avoid paying a mobile call charge — although they may have to pay for WiFi access instead.
The 6136 could also encourage B-mobile and Digicel to offer new services that require high-speed access. GSM only supports basic data services, because of its limited bandwidth, whereas WiFi can theoretically support connections of speeds in excess of 50Mbps.
A discussion like this about different technology solutions for internet access will no doubt be an ongoing one. A new development may pop up tomorrow to add a different way of communicating with each other. One thing seems for certain with internet access and just communications in general in PNG and that is due to our varied and difficult geography, our courses will most certainly need more than one type of horse.
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For more reading, see A New Model for Rural Connectivity by Al Hammond & John Paul, May 2006
THE Somare Government is pro-competition and will not revoke the licences of Papua New Guinea’s two latest mobile phone companies, Public Enterprise Minister Arthur Somare told Parliament yesterday.
Mr Speaker, the Government will not remove the licences of the new entrants as issued on the 27th of March 2007. The users of the new entrants’ mobile services are assured by the Government that their rights have been preserved and protected and that is consistent with Government policy,” he said in reply to questions on the matter by Opposition Leader Sir Mekere Morauta.
The two mobile phone entrants, Irish-owned Digicel and Green-Com, were issued mobile phone licences early this year with the Irish company snapping up thousands of customers in the first month of the launching its network.
Mindful of Digicel’s expanding network nationwide, Mr Somare said Papua New Guineans were beginning to enjoy the benefits of competition and it was not the Government’s intention to deny them that choice.
There was no u-turn and there is no u-turn as suggested by the Opposition Leader. Mr Speaker, the people of Papua New Guinea have tasted and embraced competition and that is what this Government – the Somare Government – introduced in its last term in office. And it is not the intention of Government and never has been the intention of Government to deny the people of that choice when competition is introduced.”
While there are concerns the Government’s amended ICT Policy would ensure state-owned telecommunications company Telikom PNG Ltd retained its monopoly, Mr Somare said the policy would ensure PNG consumers received maximum benefit and competition increased efficiency in the telecommunications sector.
We have tasted competition and that is competition that was introduced by this Government and we like competition. We see its benefits, Mr Speaker. Competition has raised the bar on performance and demands nothing less than greater efficiency by all providers,” he added.
On Sir Mekere’s concerns about the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC) being stripped of its licensing powers, Mr Somare said they were only “refining” the ICCC Act to separate the commission’s regulatory and licensing functions.
From our cousins in Vanuatu and fellow blogger Asese, comes a collection of posts from his blog about using their new WiMAX system (from Telecom Vanuatu) for live streaming at their music festival “Fest Napuan“.
{What is WiMAX? It is a technology aimed at providing wireless data over long distances in a variety of ways, from point-to-point links to full mobile cellular type access. WiMAX allows a user, for example, to browse the Internet on a laptop without physically connecting the laptop to the internet via any cables.}
See Katykat’s pics of Fest Napuan here
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By Asese of tHe REd TaNk
A FIRST FOR VANUATU, Telecom Vanuatu Limited through its sponsorship of the Fest Napuan was able stream live audio of the musical show on the internet. This is a major break through for the festival in reaching a wider audience. The festival was transmitted through ABC (pacific beat) and Capitol FM 107 websites.
We supplied the connection through our WiMAX base station at Ellouck; we were able to use the CPE-Si Subscriber unit, this was possible primarily due to the technology WIMAX uses to receive and transmit signals and also the location of the festival. On a technical point of view the installation was smooth sailing since no supporting poles were needed to mount the antennae and no hassles with strapping and terminating the long cables. It was all a matter of plug ‘n’ play and minimal time consumed for installation.
CPE-Si Subscriber unit
It is good to see TVL playing its part in providing a path for locals to explore and imagine the possibilities technology has to offer. This is yet again another avenue to develop; in our developing country.
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This is a first for Vanuatu and for the fest Napuan festival that has become a huge musical annual event for Vanuatu, to have this musical event streamed online. This is made possible through WiMAX broadband technology using a CPE-Si subscriber unit. If you’d like to hear what the folks in Vila are listening to, here is the ip address that you can use on your internet browser or itunes: http://202.80.37.47:8000/listen.m3u
We are only streaming audio this year maybe in years to come we may be able to stream both audio and video. The festival will be on tonight, tomorrow night through till sunday for the zion fest…enjoy
Wireless Broadband thriving in Vila!!!
24 09 2007
Getting fast internet on demand around Port Vila and surrounding suburbs can be a very tricky task, some places even impossible. The broadband network run by TVL is mainly concentrated in the CBD through the existing ancient copper cable network. This, at times is very slow and unreliable. TVL has ventured into wireless broadband (WiMAX) as an alternative solution to provide broadband internet service to residents and commercial enterprises in the rural areas of Efate albeit within a 17km radius of the two telecom towers in Vila.
Telecom Vanuatu Limited is working towards extending its WiMAX network further into the rural areas of Efate and other islands in the country. There currently is the 3.5GHz Alvarion Breezemax system running for the past 7 months however there has been a few complaints coming from a satellite application company that a channel on their C band has had some interference with it since TVL installed their WiMAX equipments. A few tests were done to try to confirm this accusation and also determine the soucre of this noise, it was found that the WiMAX equipments were not the source of this noise but TVL has taken measures to change its frequency range from the current 3.5GHz frequency to 2.3GHz as ITU is also thinking of relocating the 3.5GHz range else where.
The new 2.3GHz WiMAX equipments have arrived in Vila from the Israeli manufacturer; Alvarion, and are ready for deployment. So I’m just putting the word out there for anybody traveling or thinking to relocate to Vila that YES!!! wireless broadband is available and rapidly picking up momentum in Vanuatu.
Now you can either buy your equipment overseas and then rent the broadband internet package from TVL or you can just purchase the subscriber units from TVL. I suggest you buy the equipment overseas to make things easier. Here is a picture of the equipment TVL currently supports:
A super special friend of mine has been giving me a crash course in Opera. I obviously have no clue about it although I recognise certain pieces of music from them being used in movies etc. My friend also speaks fluent Italian which helps when she’s translating it for me so I can better understand it, but just listening to a version of “Nessun Dorma” by Paul Potts really blew me away. What made it even more emotional was the fact that this guy was a mobile phone salesman and out of the blue on a talent show on TV he comes out with a majestic voice that kept the crowd in awe. One of the judges remarked that what we were seeing was ‘a little lump of coal that is about to become a diamond…’. (jeez I’m getting a lump in my throat just writing about it).
But getting back to Opera, she also ran through Wagner’s 4 part Epic, I recognised the tune for ‘Ride of the Valkyries‘ from the movie ‘Apocalypse Now‘ and now I’m trying to download ‘La Mama Morta‘ which was played in a scene in Tom Hanks movie ‘Philadelphia‘. (ahh Thank God for YouTube!)
What I began to see was that Opera in most cases were folklore, tumbuna stories of their ancestors which were able to live and continue thriving through the art form of Opera. You can probabaly guess where I’m heading with this, but here goes, what about our culture then? What famous PNG stories do we have that reflect human spirit, tragedy and triumph? A perfect example of how the stories in Opera has survived is the very fact that allot of the story themes and music have been used in modern day advertising and entertainment as well. For example the tune for “Nessun Dorma” being used in the Olympics.
Na yumi olsem wonem nau? I used to watch some great funny plays when I was at UPNG, but I don’t hear of them anymore. You get allot of productions at the Moresby Arts Theatre and that’s a great effort but where is the balance with locally produced art? What if PNG musicians like Pati Doi teamed up with a playwright to do a production of some tolai legend? Maybe it comes down to money, maybe it’s marketing…who knows? I mean why don’t we even use PNG music tunes for advertising, instead of always using western music tunes?
It would be nice to see more Tumbuna and modern day stories being translated into plays. I know there is a good body of local productions out there but it has been far and long in between each one, but perhaps if the scripts could be collected in one place then maybe more than one acting group could perform the same stories elsewhere in the country as well. Sort of like a collection of classic rock hits that any band could pick up and play.
Anyway, here’s that Paul Potts video that’s been making me cry at my work desk…
and here is ‘La Mama Morta‘ in ‘Philadelphia‘
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