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Telecom struts its stuff

By Graeme Kennedy

Friday 18th October 2002

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Team New Zealand and event sponsor Telecom are using the America's Cup to showcase some world-first technology in the company's biggest promotional initiative this year, says marketing general manager Kevin Kenrick.

He said Telecom's investment in the Cup was about the same as Team New Zealand's other family-of-five sponsors while also providing all media centre and racing communications technology as official suppliers to the regatta. Telecom backed the past two San Diego challenges and the 2000 defence in Auckland and this time has widened its involvement with a high-tech interactive display and showcase of its latest products at the Viaduct. Called the Telecom Shed, the venue allows the public hands-on access to new technology including worldwide e-mail photograph messaging, dial-up movies, video-conferencing and Xtra's online gaming.

"We are telling the public what Telecom can do. We have a lot of profile and history in New Zealand so it is easy to see what we have done in the past, but the days of us being just a telephone company are long gone," Mr Kenrick said.

"We think we are in the business of connecting people but that concept is changing all the time. We do still connect people with each other but now we also connect them to other things that are important to them such as businesses to Eftpos and residents to home entertainment.

"In the home environment Telecom offers the Entertainer videos through our Jetstream connection ­ and here it is one of the first in the world ­ and interactive games such as the new Microsoft X-box. We have a vision of what we think the future might be including, what the fully connected house might look like, providing security and meter-reading as well as the internet and entertainment."

Mr Kenrick said some customers were already using the whole range of new products but there were many people who would just like to see how to send a text message.

He said Telecom eight months ago launched its 027 mobile network and completed much of its trials around the Hauraki Gulf for its use with the Cup's race data network (RDN) ­ also one of the first mobile data systems in the world. He said the RDN provided technology for the yachts to transmit their exact position and course for translation into the event's animated television coverage. The system was also used for communications from weather boats to the crews.

"We have been very much involved with the America's Cup in the past but a lot of our own technology is intangible so the Shed is a way of taking it off the water and showing the public on land what it's all about and how it translates to users."

Mr Kenrick said Telecom two weeks ago launched a new mobile phone system that would connect to the internet anywhere there was a signal, yet few people knew about it or how to use it.

"The Shed is a good place to start. Our name on the side of Team New Zealand's boat reflects the qualities of leadership and innovation we share with them," he said. "In our industry we are significant players in New Zealand but our marketplace is becoming increasingly global. Like Team New Zealand, we are competing against the big billionaires, and globally neither of us will be successful based on scale ­ so we must have ingenuity."

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