[update: sorry, had to vau the niu so left a few things out]

TCC took guests to Fafa Island to demonstrate and announce the release of their new product Broadband Data Anywhere with the following highlights.

Title: TCC Data Anywhere Service

Service: Broadband Internet through Copper, Fibre, or Wireless depending on your needs.

The Numbers

As a nation, we're not too well connected, even though there are a number of known, practical, achieveable social and economic benefits to being online.

• 4% of Population have access to broadband
• 15% of Population have access to the Internet
• 16% of Population have access to computers

The Prices

It's so cheap, that if you are a business and already have a Tonfon service, you'd be crazy not to just have one of the cheapest solutions from TCC as a backup system.

• Expect 75% savings on current charges
• Sample: 64k down, 32k up is $99.00 per month
• Buy the equipment up front ($500) and get a discount to $67.00 a month
• Signup for THREE years and get a further discount
• Prices exclude Consumption Tax
• Unfortunately Audio presentation does not present the full price list (seemingly displayed in the live presentation) Brochures available, but not online as yet.
• Installation is cheaper at $100 or $80 for existing customers.

What else ?

Availability ? Immediate, signup and keep begging that someone actually comes to the house. I wonder if anyone has copies of all those forms people filled out to get leased lines and have since disappeared in the hallowed halls of the TCC Fongoloa Head Quarters ? [Obviously I'm a little too late here since I'm still paying my phone bill but getting my Internet elsewhere]

WIFI Hot Spots. The General Manager alludes to hot spots for cafes which sounds like a great attraction in future.

Visit bTonga

Open Questions

Do we get maximum bandwidth inside the country ? or are your paid limits for the "Internet" also for your local access ? This is a personal bugbear of mine, if both TCC and Tonfon can manage this infrastructure question they can also increase uptake of Internet services locally.

Do you have to make money on the wireless equipment ? The $500 upfront payment sounds expensive if all it gives you is an industry standard 802.11 b/g connection that some people already have on their laptops, but I hope they are not trying to make money on the tool to get you onto their service.

I'm glad we didn't pay the TOP$3,000 that Tonfon wanted for their wireless modem, although we'd paid about TOP$2,000+ in rental before they stopped charging for it.

Demonstation

A lot of guts by TCC Management to do a live demonstration, and to do one with increasing complexity of things like video conferencing. Shows a lot of faith in the technology they've put together and the possibilities that they have been sold on, and are selling of what's feasible with broadband anywhere.

The demonstration was a 4 mile distance from TCC Head Office which gives a good distance to validate that the service was working, obviously since I wasn't there I can't really say how well it worked, but the audio implies that it works well enough.

Outsourcing

It's very exciting to see a large company such as TCC from an industry that is historically insular about what it does, expand to use contractors for a critical component of its customer interaction, the installation and service of its connections. The exciting part is not that we're finally doing in Tonga what has been done overseas for quite a while (my parents 3 optus installations were all using Optus contractors) but they have taken another initiative that the competition really should have jumped on many years ago.

The way this sounds, TCC will initially role out the Data Anywhere service using their own staff but will be contracting an external provider to service new and existing installations. With the announcement was the declaration that Dataline Services http://www.dataline.to/ has been selected as a/the preferred supplier.

Similar to what happens when you get your Optus contractor to come to the house, they will provide the installation service, but will negotiate extra services/fees should you have other problems with your computer (like virus infections?)

This obviously negates a lot of issues, problems, that TCC has to deal with in training staff as well as providing conducive environment for learning on installations while at the same time providing supportive knowledge such as TCP/IP routing, network congestion, computer hardware, operating systems.

Hmmm, I wonder if they'll contract out the IT support team?

Definitely a great move by TCC, and a great team they've selected with Saia Fonua and the team at Dataline.

Suggestions ?

Please, will someone ignore me?

Give away web html hosting. Hard Disk space is cheap, give away simple web hosting to your customers. One benefit is that there will be a search by customers for someone local to build their websites and generates more interest as well as money flow.

Wifi Hotspot. Forget about the cafes. The allusion from the broadcast/announcement is that soon you will be able to get Wifi at your cafes etc. My suggestion, forget the Cafes, get wifi so most of the business' in Tonga can plug into the wifi network and put together a billing/management system so peopl can connect to the Wifi. The TCC UCALL Shop in town is a great place for paying for your online time, getting a 'signon thing' and just login all over town.

I don't believe Wifi Hotspots at Cafes is going to get you much money. But Wifi access in the Office? that's a different issue. Of course for corporations, they need to be a little more aware of security implications.

Things are heating up, and looking at the other products available through http://www.alvarion.com the primary supplier for TCC's wireless service, it looks like TCC Is really looking towards further innovation of what's possible for customers. Let's hoping they can make money while lowering costs to the average Tongan (let alone the well to do.)

Good luck to TCC.

TCC Data Anywhere Announcement.

Audio : DVF Format (1.7Mb)
Audio : MP3 Format (13.7 Mb - lowered quality to decrease file size)
Audio : Ogg Vorbis Format (6Mb)
Audio : Windows Executable (1.8Mb)

DVF Format

The DVF File Format is the raw format used on my digital recorder. It is not the standard Sony DVF Format but same variant from the firmware developer COWON. Unfortunately I have not found an independent player on the 'NET for it although if you have a JNC SSF Digital Audio Recorder/Player you can download this file and your software will allow playing as well as conversion of the file to other formats (such as WAV and MP3)

Windows Executable

The Windows Executable version of the audio podcast is the smallest functional format. This is a small Windows application that plays the audio file. The primary advantage is size, unfortunately you must listen to the audio from beginning to end.

There is no installation required, the file runs and plays the audio on Windows XP machines (and hopefully Windows 2000.)

If you don't have the time to wait, then download this file and be ready to listen faster than the other formats Ogg Vorbis or MP3.

Ogg Vorbis Format

Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.

A list of Ogg Compatible Players for MS Windows is listed at: http://www.vorbis.com/setup_windows/, Mac OSX players are listed at: http://www.vorbis.com/setup_osx/, other platforms http://www.vorbis.com/setup_other/

If you are adventurous, download this file format and begin to enjoy some smaller download files for your music on the Internet.

MP3 Format

The MP3 file format is the most popular format for music and audio. Most Music players can play files of this format. Unfortunately, as seen for our purpose, it is also the largest file of the formats available for this announcement.

If you have good bandwidth/download speeds, and the time, go ahead and download this format as it is the least likely to cause you problems.