March 19, 2025 • 36 mins
In 2022, the Government signed an historic agreement granting Māori a share of radio spectrum suitable for 5G mobile services and a 20% share of all future commercial radio spectrum rights.
As the Chief Executive Officer of Tū Ātea, Antony Royal is putting that 5G spectrum to good use, with a major project underway to build and deploy the country's first commercial private 5G network. On The Business of Tech, Antony traces the history of the struggle to gain recognition for Māori rights to radio spectrum and outlines how Tū Ātea is helping swell the ranks of Māori engineers and technologists.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hud We Maori five G.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A wiki to man that.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Was TV and Z Takarare presenter Scotti Morrison five years
ago announcing the news that a short term allocation of
radio spectrum for five G services was being made to MARI.
It turned out to be a stepping stone to a
more significant agreement between the Crown and MARI signed in
twenty twenty two that granted MARI a fifty megahertz slice
(00:33):
of spectrum allocated to five G telecommunications services. Not only that,
but a twenty percent share of all future commercial radio
spectrum allocations. It was a huge win for MARI after
decades of making the case that radio waves were a
tanga and essential to preserving Maori language and culture. This
(00:57):
week on the Business of Tech powered by two's Business
Anthony Royle, one of the key figures that helped secure
that historic win from MARI, on the innovation in five
G services that the MARI led organization to a Taya
is now undertaking using that spectrum allocation.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
We are not going to go and try and compete
and do another two degrees. We've done their job. What
we want to do now is look at some of
the other ways that we can help improve productive out
the safety using virus technologies in a particular g wils,
so that was our starting point.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Anthony joins me shortly on episode ninety of the Business
of Tech, and my first episode without Ben More as
my co pilot. Ben sadly departed Business Desk this week,
but don't worry, he'll be hopefully back as a guest
from time to time, as he's staying very much in
the world of tech. But I'll be flying solo from
(01:53):
here on in, bringing you each week interviews with some
of our leading thinkers from the world of tech and business.
My premise is pretty simple. Really, New Zealand isn't in
a great place when you look at some of the
big economic and social indicators and how they are trending.
But when you scratch the surface, and this particularly goes
(02:14):
for the tech world, I'm so passionate about There's so
much good innovative stuff going on here. We have a
lot of smart people trying to make our country a
better place, and I think their perspectives can inspire us
all to do a lot better. That certainly applies to
this week's guest, Anthony Royle. In a few short years,
(02:34):
Anthony has led the organization to ar Taya formerly the
Interim Mari Spectrum Commission from startup to late last year
signing a deal to build a country's first commercial private
five G network for Wellington's Center Port. It's pretty incredible
progress and it's led to the creation of jobs and
crucially opportunities for MARI to have careers in the telecommunications
(02:58):
and tech space that otherwise wouldn't have existed. This really
all stems from the Waitangi Tribunal decades ago recognizing claims
to radio spectrum, and then a valiant effort by many
people in Maridom, Anthony Royal among them, to convince the
government to accept those claims and share the rights to
radio spectrum with MARI. So here's Anthony with a bit
(03:20):
of background on that big win for MARI with the
radio spectrum allocation and what his plans are for five gen.
Anthony Royal Kura, Welcome to the Business of Tech. I've
wanted to get you on for quite some time because
I'm just really excited about the work you're doing at Tuateya.
(03:42):
What was the Intra Mari Spectrum Commission looking after this
amazing Tana on behalf of MARI, the five G spectrum
allocation and some really cool stuff that you have been
doing and have plans for with that spectrum on behalf
of MARI for the betterment of MARI. I just wanted
to start out really about your background, a long career
(04:05):
in it and in MARI governance and lots of organizations
EWEI based organizations and trusts, as well as the likes
of Tapuna Carker back in the day Two Degrees you're
on the board of and there's a connection to this
journey you've been on it. Two Degrees is very much
pied off. We'll talk about as well. But I think
(04:26):
way back in the nineties you started out what as
an electrical engineer.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
That's right. Iing to engineering school in Auckland back then,
because the engineering schools were very different. It was very
male orientated and to a very very few Mary in fact,
I think it was one other Marty in the engineering
school at the time. That was where I built my career.
I always wanted to be engineered. I don't know why,
because my family comes from a family of educationalists and
(04:50):
of course you never get away from that. I've found
that through my career as education really wasn't my thing.
I've found myself being involved in education, knowlogy and mari
and where those three things meet, that's the kind of
sweet spot for me. So I'm from Nati tamter kitotongav
So I spent a lot of time with Nati Rocoa
(05:12):
and based out of Watucky with Colla and many of
the leaders that came from from that area, including one
of my mentors who was Fatarani Winata who was a
professor at Victoria University for Iran ran to Aranka was
the first CEO first to Monkey. I'm also from Napoleon
and north from my grandmother's side. I'm from the south
(05:33):
side of the Hook young and then from Nati Tama
Nati Fenoga in the Hierarchy area, which is where I'm
now spending a lot of my time. I chair Nati Tamterra,
which has interests all the way through the Orchand area
all the way down to Katikati and around, particularly predominant
in the huraky Planes and Coromandal areas. So I do
(05:54):
a lot of that ebee work as well. But you know,
the technology spaces where I've kind of sped my time.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You've had a wide variety of roles.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Anthony.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You started out looking after the paper machines at the
Kinley paper Mill, then Tasman Paper Mill as well. You
spent a number of years in Asia installing computers and factories.
You came home really sort of retrained in it. Got
involved in the first web projects for the New Zealand
Dairy Board before it became Fonterra.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
We had this new thing called the Web and we
implemented the very first international Internet that connected all of
the sites around around the world. So, you know, those
were really good foundational times developing a skill set, and
then I decided to then turn my attention to taking
(06:47):
those skills and using them for the betterment for Mari,
and so did a lot of work with FAATENGI went
out there and building to Angopol. We implemented in two
thousand and the very first program whereby it was composed
through for every single student that came to the waring
to have a computer, and if they didn't have one,
we gave them one and we gave them training. And
(07:08):
as a result of that program, we got computers into
the homes of thousands of mary across the country. We
were looking to normalize the use of technology, and to
this day it's to on oco now has We did
another project which is about in the early days of
online learning, we've said, well, this is probably going to
be the future. So we invested quite a bit of
(07:28):
time and effort into thinking about how best to do
that with sort of products, and we deployed one of
the very first Moodal implementations in New Zealand that's still
running today and in fact has a massive number of
online students now. So fucking you went out. It was
a visionary in that area. He knew that we needed
to do some stuff for the future and he let
(07:50):
us get on with it. I've been very fortunate to
have been involved in many of those projects which were
very forward.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Thinking, Yeah, and tackling that issue that we still have
to be honest, off the digital divide is inequity there
around access to things like broadband devices, online learning platforms.
So you were directly addressing some of those things early on.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, Like in two thousand when we got our program
up and running computers. The s problem was that many
of our students come from way around the country. Well
none of the ISPs would take them on, mostly because
you need to have credit cards, and most of our
students were pretty transient. They were in rental situations, and
there was no way for us to get our students
onto an ICP. So we said, we're going to create
(08:32):
our own That's what we did. We created our own
ISP and these are back in the days we used
modems over phone lines. We created our own health desk
and we trained up people to be on the end
of the line to give people a hand. You know,
back in those days, that was pretty innovative to start
up your own ISP. These days, it's relatively straightforward to
(08:53):
do that.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, there's a whole wholesale sort of network now with
obviously with Corus, you're basically wholesale in fiber access. It
was a lot more difficult back then, negotiating literally with
Telecom who had the monopoly on the copper lines.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
That's right. We even put our own fiber into all teching.
We ran a big fiber ring. We've got some guys
and we dug a big fiber ring in me. Of
course that got over built by of course we weren't
able to come to an agreement. Said we said, look
at these fiber were in the ground we've got ducks,
We've got the whole lot. But anyway, they went that
keen on the idea. But that's the kind of thinking
(09:27):
that we were engaged. It was exciting, it was risky,
and it was you know, this be the future is
So that's what we should be doing, is thinking about
what's the next thing? Where are we're going? And yeah, yeah,
I think we all know what the next big thing is.
The question is how do you hark it?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And while all of this great work was going on,
it was really, I guess, a bit of a struggle
to recognize Mari's rights to spectrum. Radio spectrum a really
valuable commodity that telecommunications providers and broadcasters rely on to
supply those services. Take us through sort of the history
(10:02):
of this. It goes back to probably the seventies and eighties,
but that real struggled to have that right recognized legally.
That led to in twenty twenty two, and you were
a big part of making this happen. That recognition of
Mary's rights enshrined in legislation, resulting in MARI collectively being
(10:23):
given a chunk of five G spectrum and the rights
to twenty percent of future commercial spectrum as well, huge
huge development there. Take us back to the history of that.
Where does it begin, Well.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
It begins well before my time, because Mary been working
on this for decades. The argument was linked to survival
of our language. There was a lot of work to
try and encourage the use of Telli or Mary, and
one of the tools that was required to make that
happen was being able to have access to broadcast services,
both in terms of radio and television. The ability for
(10:59):
people to hear the language in a normalized situation over
our broadcast services was pretty fundamental and that was what
the argument was about. And of course the government was
not keen at all on handing out licenses. After a
lot of arguments and discussion and negotiation through some AM
radio stations that were set up and some of them
(11:23):
run to the.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Day and those AM licenses back then, that was really
the start of EE radio, which, as you say, is
still going strong decades later. I think there was also
an effort at the time for Mari to host the
third TV station that ultimately became TV three of totally
commercial cam List venture back in the early nineties, but
there was obviously a concerted effort it didn't work, I
(11:46):
think for financial reason for Mari to be that third
TV channel.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah. Look, there's been a lot of barriers placed in
the way over time, not the least of which is
having the financial capital to be able to pull some
of the stuff off, because you know, producing media is
not a cheap exercise. But I think that you know,
through the persistence of some of our leaders over the years,
you know, Sir Graham and Lada Murra and were Angywaketi
(12:11):
Puru and many many others, they've all done the hard
yards on this over time, and it's down to those
leaders who have really thought for this that we are
in the position were now.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Nineteen eighty six, the White Tangi Tribunal found that broadcasting
was crucial for promoting today as you say, it should
be a tanga protected by the Treaty of Waite Tangy.
Fast forward to ninety nine, the White Tangi Tribunal Y
seven seven six recommended allocating a share of commercial spectrum
to MAI. The government didn't accept that finding. It took
(12:45):
another basically twenty years for that to actually happen.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So there was Rangya or Everton was the claimant supported
by Natrokowa when you are to playing a very strong part.
Dang Yojo's son Graham Everton that they all played a
part and bringing to the argument around telecommunications spectrum. That
was the first in the telecommunications space that we saw
(13:13):
an argument brought forth around the role that BARTI had
to play in this space. And you know, it's quite
interesting the role that New Zealand as a whole is
played in telecommunications. We were the first in the world
to auction off telecommunications spectrum. The United States and other
countries around the world actually followed us and looked at
the experiment that happened here in New Zealand and now
(13:34):
it's become the norm. And of course that idea of
optioning off spectrum was the very thing that kept off
the argument and the U Tribune, and that is the
government assumed ownership of this resource, the rights to use
spectrum or telecommunication spectrum in particular, and then to be
able to go on and in correct private property rights
(13:55):
which are then tradeable. They have asset values and can
be traded. That was the key that good the conversation,
saying you can't assume that you own the stuff and
then can convert it into these private assets. And of
course the government's argument was what in eighteen forty, you know,
you guys didn't know about spectrum, so you know you
can't count and make your tonnel well, and eighty forty
(14:16):
you didn't. So that was the basis of the argument
was really around these private rights that were being created.
And of course the Witanua Tribunal found in favor. The
government didn't accept the finding because it's only a recommendatory process.
Some part. What they did do was in two thousand
and the following year and they said, tell you what
(14:37):
we'll do is we'll set up a trust, and which
was called at the time the Marti Spectrum Trust, which
is now called to that. I take a trust and
then we'll give you a bit of money. They gave
five million dollars and then the government spent a million
dollars on actually setting the trust up, so it wasn't
a lot of cash. And then the rights to purchase
some three g spectrum and we'll give you a discount,
(14:59):
a five percent disc and the spectrum I think was
very forteen million. I think, so there was no way
with the money that we had that were going to
even be able to get our hands on it. So
from that point forward, there were a number of people
who rolled up best Lee's and said, look, we need
to think about how we utilize the spectrum this opportunity
(15:21):
we have, and how do we build a competing network.
And of course, at the time, Vodaphone and Spark had
a very comfortable duopoly, so even if you wanted to
start up a new network, there were so many things
that were barriers in place to prevent that occurrent. But
with tenacity and people like Tex Edwards and Bill Osborne
(15:42):
and many others, Bavis, Mulleins and others batted down all
of those barriers over time, attracted investment from overseas and
eventually launched two degrees Mobile, of which Marty had a
small portion, of a diluting portion over time because of
building one of these nationwide mes works at a billion
dollars is pretty expensive, so it's not the sort of
(16:03):
petticash that we have sitting in the draw. So over
time we were diluted. But nonetheless, I think the value
that we have seen as a result of two degrees
Mobile coming to this country is can be measured in
billions of pe and now we've got one of the
more competitive markets in the world. We didn't have that before.
I remember personally getting a monthly bill from Vodafa for
(16:27):
seven hundred and fifty dollars for my mobile phone.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, sending a text message was twenty cents, So it
was ridiculous. Every market in Europe showed that. When in
the US, when you have three players, that's when you
really do get competition. That relationship and it was back
in the early days. It was with Ecoonett, this African
telecommunications provider. They were involved in it texts just a
force of nature, knew exactly what he was doing. He
(16:52):
was involved in. It led to your involvement with two
Degrees on the board as well.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
That's right. I was on the board during the startup
phase of Two Degrees, which was pretty exciting. It learned
a lot during that phase working with the guys from Trilogy. Yeah,
it was a pretty exciting face. It was a people
were passionate about building a new competitive organization against the
existing two incumbenties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So that has happened and you know they have one
hundreds of thousands of customers now, so that's a great thing.
Separate to that about five years ago you joined the
Intra mari Spectrum Commission which is now Totaya as the
chief executive officer, and that was really to shepherd and
take care of the spectrum resources.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
In two thousand and twenty we established the Intra Marii
Spectrum Commission Trust, which I became the CEO of and
then we went on to negotiating a deal with the
government which we signed in twenty twenty two. And so
that was a landmark agreement with the government that set
out a plan for the future which was about a
(18:00):
test spectrum, about supporting developing up the idea of a
spectrum commission, the idea of how do we get access
to infrastructure, skills, capability because we've been trying for so long.
Capabilities in the space are very low, very few Maori
inside telecommunications sector and this and issue actually pull others
(18:21):
bit later it and just really how do you continue
to build a workforce for the telecommunications sector. It's been
neglected for some time. So we said we want to
be able to build up our capacity and ultimate aim
is we don't want to be dependent on government. We
want to be self standard, we want to stand on own,
we want to be independent. We want to add value
(18:42):
to the government and we want to add value to
New Zealand, and we want to do that through participating
at greater levels than we've allowed in the past. And
so that was the blueprint for what the future might
look like, and so we've been working on that. We
started a process of looking for opportunities use to invest
in the sector and a broad Tech Group was one
(19:03):
that popped up and met a number of the criteria
and so we signed an agreement. Interestingly, broad Tech Group,
we didn't realize that we'll have to sign it the
day that we signed with broad Tech. Broad Tech had
just on that very day, had its fiftieth birthday. So
it's a company that requires fifty years old in New Zealand.
(19:26):
And it started out with Radio Heneque, building the first
commercial antenna site for Radio HOGEG. So its genesis is
in the broadcasting and radio and television and then more
lately it's gotten too telecommunications. So we've had that just
over a year now and supporting that and growing that organization,
(19:46):
and so that's been a fantastic acquisition.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It sure has people probably haven't heard as much about
broad Tech. It's sort of a behind the scenes provide
a little bit in some respects like Cordia, the state
owned enterprise, it does a lot of broadcasting stuff as well,
does some stuff there. But now you have this organization
with what over one hundred staff.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, it's roughly, I mean it varies, but including subcontracts,
is over one hundred staff and working right across the industry.
So not only in television and radio. I've up working
for the three molebil operators, but one or two degrees
that tower companies can exterin forty south ICG and currently
doing for MGC.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So you've got this what fifty megahertz chunk of five
G spectrum. There was some money involved as well that
allowed you to make that acquisition. So what's the plan
Now you've got this incredible resource. Tell us about some
of the projects that you have underway that ultimately are
going to lead to this becoming sustainable financially, you know,
(20:46):
a really solid business, but also is going to flow
back to MARI in terms of MARI development and opportunities
for career development.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
When we, of course we're negotiating for access to five
G spectrum, of course, the natural response for a number
of people who is what the heck are you're going
to use it for. One of the things that we
said right from the very start is we think there's
an opportunity to develop private five G networks. That's you know,
(21:15):
four G networks have been around for a while, but
the opportunity to play in the five G space was
we thought was a natural place for us to go to.
We are not going to go and try and compete
and do another two degrees. We've done that job. What
we want to do now is look at some of
the other ways that we can help improve productivity, health
and safety using wildest technologies and particular g widest technologies.
(21:39):
So that was where that was our starting point. The
way in which the technology is configured is different because
the use cases different. Here what mobile operators primarily get
their money from shipping data down to the devices, whereas
were the other way around. We want to ship data up.
Trying to manage configuration, which has been mandated here in
(22:02):
New Zealand, where we've done a lot of works. What
happens if you do try and change the way in
which the configuration works. How much does that create interference?
What are the impacts on the other operators? So we
did a lot of work in that space. So building
up our capacity and capability in the private five G
private networks was really important for us. And then going
(22:23):
on and investing in the space and putting our money
where our mouth was and going and winning a Centapore
was important for us because we believe that there was
the things that you can do with this technology that
you know, if you talk to the Centable guys, they're
all about half and safety, make sure their people are
safe and how can they deploy technology. So they've tried
(22:44):
using the Meno mobile networks on the site, but it
doesn't work for them because they've got a really great
park right next door to them. Every time some rugby
game or some concerts on, it sucks up all the
bandwidths and they're left with none. So private five G
networks is the way to go for them.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Wellington's one of the busiest ports in the country. Actually,
it's got all the ferries that comes through Bluebridge and
interil NERD's got the logging ships going out, container ships
coming in. Incredibly busy, large campus there. As you say,
you've got the sky Stadium on one side, and I
didn't realize as well, but when ships pull up there.
You've got these massive, big steel hulled ships there which
(23:21):
interfere with the mobile networks as well. So to actually
build your own network with your own cell towers on
the site, they will have exclusive use of that better
than Wi Fi and not competing with others on the
public mobile network.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
That's right, and there's some particular challenges in that space.
You've got ship that comes in, you've got containers that
gets plopped in front of the radios. It's a continuously
changing environment. It's something that we'd like to spend some
more time researching on as to how you can actually
create a really good service inside a changing environment like that.
And so we just recently partnered up with aut to
(23:59):
look research project in which you can have configurrale antennas
rather than the static ones that we have at the moment.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
This will be the first commercial private five G network.
We've heard so much about these, mainly from the mobile vendors.
They've really been pushing them. Some of them have sort
of been put in place in other countries, mainly at
airport's big factories where they have a lot of devices
that need to connect in real time. So they want
low latency connections has been very slow to come to
(24:29):
New Zealand. But the resources you have, particularly with that
five G spectrum, that really gives you an advantage when
it comes to private five gen.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Well, yes it does, but it's not We're not relying
on that on its owning. We've still got to be innovative.
We've still going to deliver a great product and a
great service. While the spectrum side of it is important,
in my mind, that shouldn't be the deciding vector. That's
the service that you're developing and providing, and so ultimately
we just want to be the service provider providing innovative solutions.
(25:00):
We don't necessarily have to own the relationship with the
end customer. But what we do want to do is
to generate interest in this area and to generate opportunities.
So since the Centerble announcement, of course, now we've got
a whole range of boards around the country who are
all looking to do similar things, which is great.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, and you aren't in competition necessarily with the big
three mobile operators. As you say, you know, you don't
need to own the end customer, and those guys have
a lot of customers already. So there's huge scope for
partnership there.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I guess, look, that's what that's our end game and
all of this, and from time to time we will
compete with the mobile operators I expect, but that's not
our fundamental strategies to go get to ed with. What
we do want to do is to generate interest. We
want to be able to be innovative. You know, the
mobile operators are facing a challenging time at the moment.
(25:53):
They're having to continue to invest in new technologies as
they come along. In five G S eight RN would
of course still be the retorations over time, and then
of course there will be other spectrum bands that potentially
they mightey have to invest in. At the same time,
they've got a customer base that is wanting to pay
less and expecting to get higher speeds and greater value
(26:15):
out of what they're spending on telecommunications. And then you
have the other part of this is the vendor environment,
whereby of course you've got the geopolitical challenges with Huawei,
who have provided some kind of competitive tension. I guess
amongst the vendors now you're probably down to two major
vendors now, and then of course the move to cloud
(26:38):
based solutions and virtualized services, and of course the only way,
the only way that mobile operators long term are going
to be able to survive, I think is they need
to be thinking about how do we reduce our cost
of infrastructure, both in terms of their investment upfront and
their ongoing maintenance costs, so you know we want to
(26:59):
pay it.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, that's brilliant, and we've got technologies like open ran,
you know, the radio access network being able to share
that not everyone having to build their own one, as
you say, infrastructure sharing. When you talk to the telcos,
they're like, you know, this is a low margin business
and they thought five G would be the one that
added a premium. It hasn't worked out that way, so
they're going to be reluctant to invest in six G
(27:22):
unless it's going to lead to a big revenue boost
for them.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
That's right, and thinking about how that ecosystem fits together.
So open ram is a really good example. You know,
how how do you mix and match. There's some real
advantages in buying all of your product from one vendor,
but there's also some advantages and going open rounds such
as Vada Phones doing over in Europe. So our guys
(27:45):
have been experimenting and can now connect a range of
different calls to radios. We have a range of different radios,
We've got three different calls, and we can mix and
match all of those radios with all of our call
with three different calls. So that's the stuff that takes
a bit of time to develop. Yeah, and then of
course it's about then matching what are the technologies that
(28:07):
best match the use case that we're trying to solve
this particular project.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So hopefully this becomes a really financially successful venture and
therefore the proceeds the dividends of that will go back
to MARII. In terms of someone who's sitting in Northland
or the East Cape at the moment and can afford broadband,
it's really expensive. That's where the digital divide still really exists.
Is there anything on the roadmap where you might be
(28:35):
able to use that spectrum and your infrastructure expertise to
provide low cost or no cost broadband maybe via EWE
organizations to people who are left out at the moment.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That's an ongoing challenge to solve that digital equity problem.
I am a little bit cautious to take too much
of that on our own shoulders, because at the end
of the day, this is a government responsibility to make
sure that all New Zealanders get equitable access to telecommunications.
What we can do is think about what are some
of the other innovative solutions that will help. So one
(29:07):
of the things that we have been thinking about is
what happens in times of climate events. How can we
help communities build a resilient tele communications of a structure
they can turn on when their existing one fails for
whatever reason that might be. And so we've been experimenting
and building some prototypes around a very small mobile tem
(29:31):
that can automatically stand up a mobile network or a
Wi Fi network. It's low power ideally for us, that
will be run for months on end without the intervention.
So we do quite a bit of work to think
about what that might look like. And I think that
if we can, as we continue to iterate on the
work that we're doing in that space, there will be
opportunities for us to provide communities with the ability to
(29:53):
be stand alone. Because one of the things that we
had cyclone Gabriel, we had that resilient We talked about
how do you provide more resilience. The problem is that
one way that what to provide resilience is what more
batteries and what more generators? In more generators and you
only shift your supply chain problem to gasoline as opposed
(30:14):
to power. Having a solution which is only driven from
one end, and my view doesn't work. You need to
be able to give communities their own ability to be
able to resilient in their own space and not have
to rely completely on command and control from a central point.
And so that's what I'd like to see is that
(30:36):
we engage communities more in those things that are important
to them.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
There's there young Mari people out there who want to
get into technology. You are the only person in the
class as an electrical engineer all those decades ago. But
now potentially if people are interested in a career in telecommunications,
they have a pathway.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Now.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Obviously there still good courses in that getting a job
there are the three telcos, but particularly for MARI engineers,
you've got an organization here that part of its remit
is to support that workforce. That's a huge opportunity.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So that's the part that we haven't talked too much about.
And that's what is the value for MARII out of
all this, because we're not doing this for sharhold returns.
So we're doing this because we think there's some value
that we can return to mari and to New Zealanders
are particularly the industry. So if you look at radio
engineers typically in New Zealand, they have all been trained, well,
(31:31):
we're almost all near retirement. We're training through the Post
Office days and BCL and all those government organizations. We
haven't had those training programs in place for a long time,
and so we're short of people with those skills and capability,
and they tend to be filled by bringing people offshore,
which is fine, but you've also got to be building
(31:52):
your own locals who have that opportunity to play the space. Now,
if you look at the engineering schools today, people thought
there used to be there a very different place and
really really pleased, you know, want to walk into these
engineering schools to see the range of people that are
there now as opposed to what it used to look like.
So it's fantastic. So what we're doing is that we've
(32:13):
got in place our relationships with tertiary educations to try
and promote the idea of telecommunications as a valid career path,
and of course there are a whole range of different
employment pathways. We are focusing at the moment on the
engineering site, but that's not the only place that they
will be focusing. So for example, we've got two engineers
(32:34):
that we pulled out we just completed their engineering degree
Canterbury too young many and we've brought them up to
Auckland and they are now becoming experts on deploying five G.
That's something that is you wouldn't get anywhere else. What
we want to do is to work with the industry
and come up with a program of internships that allows
people to get around a build experience in the industry.
(32:56):
So first of all, attract people into the industry, and
there's a whole pipeline. It's all the way back to
making sure that we've got the right students who are
being service schooled in STEM subjects, who are getting through
into the tertiary training, given the right work experience and
given a positive work experience, and then showing the choice
of roles and the choice of industry participants. So each
(33:20):
of the big em and o's and the big telcos
in our space they're all doing stuff in the space.
It's great, but there is no integrated approach to doing this,
unlike the energy sector, which does have an integrated approach
to attracting people into their sector. That's the role that
we hope that we can work with the telcos and
(33:40):
facilitate these opportunities. That's one part is the workforce and
of course the innovation space. We want to continue to
think about how do you use wildest technologies to help
solve real world problems. How our argument is this is
that you give us access to the resources should have
access to spectrum, we will build platforms upon which people
(34:00):
use that resource to innovate and create IP. And this
is the bigger you know, New Zealand Inc. Argument is
that thinking about spectrum resource, our spectrum resource, not just
as something that can be used to provide some services.
Consumers will pay some money to the companies and you know,
will be sweet thinking about how do we use that
(34:22):
access the spectrum to generate further IP which is of
interest to people off shore. So ultimately, long term, the
goal is to be innovative enough that you know, we
can build some companies who generate offshore revenue as a
result of our skills and exertise here in your seeland.
That the great thing about New Zealand is will be
small enough and edgile enough to do this. Trying to
(34:44):
do this in other countries is really, really hard.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I just want to say, you know, congratulations on all
our hard work paying off. Now you've got a sustainable business,
You've got in perpetuity. You've got this great tongue in
the form of Malori Spectrum. You're getting engineers that probably
wouldn't have had an opportunity before going into the industry.
It looks like a great opportunity. You've got the five
(35:08):
G private network going live at Centerport. You a first
in this country. I guess you've laid the groundwork for
what could be a really successful venture that actually really
does have impact for Mari.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, we look, we're looking forward to I mean that
the technology stuff is really great, but what's important for
us is thinking about what's best for Mary and what's
best for alt at all, and that's really where we
want to play.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So thanks to Anthony Royle for coming on the podcast.
Some details about what Tuiteya is working on in the
show notes. You'll find them in the podcast section at
Business deesk dot co dot nz. Get in touch with
your feedback, ideas and guest suggestions. Email me on Peter
at Peter Griffin dot co dot nz or you'll easily
find me on linkin Blue Sky. Feel free to slide
(36:02):
into my DMS. Next week, Sarah Box, one of the
countries leading artificial intelligence policy experts, joins us on the show.
She's helping the government shape its approach to AI following
a stint in the US last year that took in
Trump's victory in the November presidential election, which ushered in
a significant change in direction for AI policy and regulation
(36:25):
in the US, which has truly global ramifications. If you're
listening on iHeartRadio, you can also subscribe to the podcast
in your podcast app of choice. Leave a review too
if you like the show, and we'll see you back
here next Thursday with me Peter Griffin for another episode
of the Business of Tech.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Catch it in
Hud We Maori five G.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A wiki to man that.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Was TV and Z Takarare presenter Scotti Morrison five years
ago announcing the news that a short term allocation of
radio spectrum for five G services was being made to MARI.
It turned out to be a stepping stone to a
more significant agreement between the Crown and MARI signed in
twenty twenty two that granted MARI a fifty megahertz slice
(00:33):
of spectrum allocated to five G telecommunications services. Not only that,
but a twenty percent share of all future commercial radio
spectrum allocations. It was a huge win for MARI after
decades of making the case that radio waves were a
tanga and essential to preserving Maori language and culture. This
(00:57):
week on the Business of Tech powered by two's Business
Anthony Royle, one of the key figures that helped secure
that historic win from MARI, on the innovation in five
G services that the MARI led organization to a Taya
is now undertaking using that spectrum allocation.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
We are not going to go and try and compete
and do another two degrees. We've done their job. What
we want to do now is look at some of
the other ways that we can help improve productive out
the safety using virus technologies in a particular g wils,
so that was our starting point.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Anthony joins me shortly on episode ninety of the Business
of Tech, and my first episode without Ben More as
my co pilot. Ben sadly departed Business Desk this week,
but don't worry, he'll be hopefully back as a guest
from time to time, as he's staying very much in
the world of tech. But I'll be flying solo from
(01:53):
here on in, bringing you each week interviews with some
of our leading thinkers from the world of tech and business.
My premise is pretty simple. Really, New Zealand isn't in
a great place when you look at some of the
big economic and social indicators and how they are trending.
But when you scratch the surface, and this particularly goes
(02:14):
for the tech world, I'm so passionate about There's so
much good innovative stuff going on here. We have a
lot of smart people trying to make our country a
better place, and I think their perspectives can inspire us
all to do a lot better. That certainly applies to
this week's guest, Anthony Royle. In a few short years,
(02:34):
Anthony has led the organization to ar Taya formerly the
Interim Mari Spectrum Commission from startup to late last year
signing a deal to build a country's first commercial private
five G network for Wellington's Center Port. It's pretty incredible
progress and it's led to the creation of jobs and
crucially opportunities for MARI to have careers in the telecommunications
(02:58):
and tech space that otherwise wouldn't have existed. This really
all stems from the Waitangi Tribunal decades ago recognizing claims
to radio spectrum, and then a valiant effort by many
people in Maridom, Anthony Royal among them, to convince the
government to accept those claims and share the rights to
radio spectrum with MARI. So here's Anthony with a bit
(03:20):
of background on that big win for MARI with the
radio spectrum allocation and what his plans are for five gen.
Anthony Royal Kura, Welcome to the Business of Tech. I've
wanted to get you on for quite some time because
I'm just really excited about the work you're doing at Tuateya.
(03:42):
What was the Intra Mari Spectrum Commission looking after this
amazing Tana on behalf of MARI, the five G spectrum
allocation and some really cool stuff that you have been
doing and have plans for with that spectrum on behalf
of MARI for the betterment of MARI. I just wanted
to start out really about your background, a long career
(04:05):
in it and in MARI governance and lots of organizations
EWEI based organizations and trusts, as well as the likes
of Tapuna Carker back in the day Two Degrees you're
on the board of and there's a connection to this
journey you've been on it. Two Degrees is very much
pied off. We'll talk about as well. But I think
(04:26):
way back in the nineties you started out what as
an electrical engineer.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
That's right. Iing to engineering school in Auckland back then,
because the engineering schools were very different. It was very
male orientated and to a very very few Mary in fact,
I think it was one other Marty in the engineering
school at the time. That was where I built my career.
I always wanted to be engineered. I don't know why,
because my family comes from a family of educationalists and
(04:50):
of course you never get away from that. I've found
that through my career as education really wasn't my thing.
I've found myself being involved in education, knowlogy and mari
and where those three things meet, that's the kind of
sweet spot for me. So I'm from Nati tamter kitotongav
So I spent a lot of time with Nati Rocoa
(05:12):
and based out of Watucky with Colla and many of
the leaders that came from from that area, including one
of my mentors who was Fatarani Winata who was a
professor at Victoria University for Iran ran to Aranka was
the first CEO first to Monkey. I'm also from Napoleon
and north from my grandmother's side. I'm from the south
(05:33):
side of the Hook young and then from Nati Tama
Nati Fenoga in the Hierarchy area, which is where I'm
now spending a lot of my time. I chair Nati Tamterra,
which has interests all the way through the Orchand area
all the way down to Katikati and around, particularly predominant
in the huraky Planes and Coromandal areas. So I do
(05:54):
a lot of that ebee work as well. But you know,
the technology spaces where I've kind of sped my time.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
You've had a wide variety of roles.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Anthony.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You started out looking after the paper machines at the
Kinley paper Mill, then Tasman Paper Mill as well. You
spent a number of years in Asia installing computers and factories.
You came home really sort of retrained in it. Got
involved in the first web projects for the New Zealand
Dairy Board before it became Fonterra.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
We had this new thing called the Web and we
implemented the very first international Internet that connected all of
the sites around around the world. So, you know, those
were really good foundational times developing a skill set, and
then I decided to then turn my attention to taking
(06:47):
those skills and using them for the betterment for Mari,
and so did a lot of work with FAATENGI went
out there and building to Angopol. We implemented in two
thousand and the very first program whereby it was composed
through for every single student that came to the waring
to have a computer, and if they didn't have one,
we gave them one and we gave them training. And
(07:08):
as a result of that program, we got computers into
the homes of thousands of mary across the country. We
were looking to normalize the use of technology, and to
this day it's to on oco now has We did
another project which is about in the early days of
online learning, we've said, well, this is probably going to
be the future. So we invested quite a bit of
(07:28):
time and effort into thinking about how best to do
that with sort of products, and we deployed one of
the very first Moodal implementations in New Zealand that's still
running today and in fact has a massive number of
online students now. So fucking you went out. It was
a visionary in that area. He knew that we needed
to do some stuff for the future and he let
(07:50):
us get on with it. I've been very fortunate to
have been involved in many of those projects which were
very forward.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Thinking, Yeah, and tackling that issue that we still have
to be honest, off the digital divide is inequity there
around access to things like broadband devices, online learning platforms.
So you were directly addressing some of those things early on.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, Like in two thousand when we got our program
up and running computers. The s problem was that many
of our students come from way around the country. Well
none of the ISPs would take them on, mostly because
you need to have credit cards, and most of our
students were pretty transient. They were in rental situations, and
there was no way for us to get our students
onto an ICP. So we said, we're going to create
(08:32):
our own That's what we did. We created our own
ISP and these are back in the days we used
modems over phone lines. We created our own health desk
and we trained up people to be on the end
of the line to give people a hand. You know,
back in those days, that was pretty innovative to start
up your own ISP. These days, it's relatively straightforward to
(08:53):
do that.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, there's a whole wholesale sort of network now with
obviously with Corus, you're basically wholesale in fiber access. It
was a lot more difficult back then, negotiating literally with
Telecom who had the monopoly on the copper lines.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
That's right. We even put our own fiber into all teching.
We ran a big fiber ring. We've got some guys
and we dug a big fiber ring in me. Of
course that got over built by of course we weren't
able to come to an agreement. Said we said, look
at these fiber were in the ground we've got ducks,
We've got the whole lot. But anyway, they went that
keen on the idea. But that's the kind of thinking
(09:27):
that we were engaged. It was exciting, it was risky,
and it was you know, this be the future is
So that's what we should be doing, is thinking about
what's the next thing? Where are we're going? And yeah, yeah,
I think we all know what the next big thing is.
The question is how do you hark it?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And while all of this great work was going on,
it was really, I guess, a bit of a struggle
to recognize Mari's rights to spectrum. Radio spectrum a really
valuable commodity that telecommunications providers and broadcasters rely on to
supply those services. Take us through sort of the history
(10:02):
of this. It goes back to probably the seventies and eighties,
but that real struggled to have that right recognized legally.
That led to in twenty twenty two, and you were
a big part of making this happen. That recognition of
Mary's rights enshrined in legislation, resulting in MARI collectively being
(10:23):
given a chunk of five G spectrum and the rights
to twenty percent of future commercial spectrum as well, huge
huge development there. Take us back to the history of that.
Where does it begin, Well.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
It begins well before my time, because Mary been working
on this for decades. The argument was linked to survival
of our language. There was a lot of work to
try and encourage the use of Telli or Mary, and
one of the tools that was required to make that
happen was being able to have access to broadcast services,
both in terms of radio and television. The ability for
(10:59):
people to hear the language in a normalized situation over
our broadcast services was pretty fundamental and that was what
the argument was about. And of course the government was
not keen at all on handing out licenses. After a
lot of arguments and discussion and negotiation through some AM
radio stations that were set up and some of them
(11:23):
run to the.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Day and those AM licenses back then, that was really
the start of EE radio, which, as you say, is
still going strong decades later. I think there was also
an effort at the time for Mari to host the
third TV station that ultimately became TV three of totally
commercial cam List venture back in the early nineties, but
there was obviously a concerted effort it didn't work, I
(11:46):
think for financial reason for Mari to be that third
TV channel.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah. Look, there's been a lot of barriers placed in
the way over time, not the least of which is
having the financial capital to be able to pull some
of the stuff off, because you know, producing media is
not a cheap exercise. But I think that you know,
through the persistence of some of our leaders over the years,
you know, Sir Graham and Lada Murra and were Angywaketi
(12:11):
Puru and many many others, they've all done the hard
yards on this over time, and it's down to those
leaders who have really thought for this that we are
in the position were now.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Nineteen eighty six, the White Tangi Tribunal found that broadcasting
was crucial for promoting today as you say, it should
be a tanga protected by the Treaty of Waite Tangy.
Fast forward to ninety nine, the White Tangi Tribunal Y
seven seven six recommended allocating a share of commercial spectrum
to MAI. The government didn't accept that finding. It took
(12:45):
another basically twenty years for that to actually happen.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
So there was Rangya or Everton was the claimant supported
by Natrokowa when you are to playing a very strong part.
Dang Yojo's son Graham Everton that they all played a
part and bringing to the argument around telecommunications spectrum. That
was the first in the telecommunications space that we saw
(13:13):
an argument brought forth around the role that BARTI had
to play in this space. And you know, it's quite
interesting the role that New Zealand as a whole is
played in telecommunications. We were the first in the world
to auction off telecommunications spectrum. The United States and other
countries around the world actually followed us and looked at
the experiment that happened here in New Zealand and now
(13:34):
it's become the norm. And of course that idea of
optioning off spectrum was the very thing that kept off
the argument and the U Tribune, and that is the
government assumed ownership of this resource, the rights to use
spectrum or telecommunication spectrum in particular, and then to be
able to go on and in correct private property rights
(13:55):
which are then tradeable. They have asset values and can
be traded. That was the key that good the conversation,
saying you can't assume that you own the stuff and
then can convert it into these private assets. And of
course the government's argument was what in eighteen forty, you know,
you guys didn't know about spectrum, so you know you
can't count and make your tonnel well, and eighty forty
(14:16):
you didn't. So that was the basis of the argument
was really around these private rights that were being created.
And of course the Witanua Tribunal found in favor. The
government didn't accept the finding because it's only a recommendatory process.
Some part. What they did do was in two thousand
and the following year and they said, tell you what
(14:37):
we'll do is we'll set up a trust, and which
was called at the time the Marti Spectrum Trust, which
is now called to that. I take a trust and
then we'll give you a bit of money. They gave
five million dollars and then the government spent a million
dollars on actually setting the trust up, so it wasn't
a lot of cash. And then the rights to purchase
some three g spectrum and we'll give you a discount,
(14:59):
a five percent disc and the spectrum I think was
very forteen million. I think, so there was no way
with the money that we had that were going to
even be able to get our hands on it. So
from that point forward, there were a number of people
who rolled up best Lee's and said, look, we need
to think about how we utilize the spectrum this opportunity
(15:21):
we have, and how do we build a competing network.
And of course, at the time, Vodaphone and Spark had
a very comfortable duopoly, so even if you wanted to
start up a new network, there were so many things
that were barriers in place to prevent that occurrent. But
with tenacity and people like Tex Edwards and Bill Osborne
(15:42):
and many others, Bavis, Mulleins and others batted down all
of those barriers over time, attracted investment from overseas and
eventually launched two degrees Mobile, of which Marty had a
small portion, of a diluting portion over time because of
building one of these nationwide mes works at a billion
dollars is pretty expensive, so it's not the sort of
(16:03):
petticash that we have sitting in the draw. So over
time we were diluted. But nonetheless, I think the value
that we have seen as a result of two degrees
Mobile coming to this country is can be measured in
billions of pe and now we've got one of the
more competitive markets in the world. We didn't have that before.
I remember personally getting a monthly bill from Vodafa for
(16:27):
seven hundred and fifty dollars for my mobile phone.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, sending a text message was twenty cents, So it
was ridiculous. Every market in Europe showed that. When in
the US, when you have three players, that's when you
really do get competition. That relationship and it was back
in the early days. It was with Ecoonett, this African
telecommunications provider. They were involved in it texts just a
force of nature, knew exactly what he was doing. He
(16:52):
was involved in. It led to your involvement with two
Degrees on the board as well.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
That's right. I was on the board during the startup
phase of Two Degrees, which was pretty exciting. It learned
a lot during that phase working with the guys from Trilogy. Yeah,
it was a pretty exciting face. It was a people
were passionate about building a new competitive organization against the
existing two incumbenties. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So that has happened and you know they have one
hundreds of thousands of customers now, so that's a great thing.
Separate to that about five years ago you joined the
Intra mari Spectrum Commission which is now Totaya as the
chief executive officer, and that was really to shepherd and
take care of the spectrum resources.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
In two thousand and twenty we established the Intra Marii
Spectrum Commission Trust, which I became the CEO of and
then we went on to negotiating a deal with the
government which we signed in twenty twenty two. And so
that was a landmark agreement with the government that set
out a plan for the future which was about a
(18:00):
test spectrum, about supporting developing up the idea of a
spectrum commission, the idea of how do we get access
to infrastructure, skills, capability because we've been trying for so long.
Capabilities in the space are very low, very few Maori
inside telecommunications sector and this and issue actually pull others
(18:21):
bit later it and just really how do you continue
to build a workforce for the telecommunications sector. It's been
neglected for some time. So we said we want to
be able to build up our capacity and ultimate aim
is we don't want to be dependent on government. We
want to be self standard, we want to stand on own,
we want to be independent. We want to add value
(18:42):
to the government and we want to add value to
New Zealand, and we want to do that through participating
at greater levels than we've allowed in the past. And
so that was the blueprint for what the future might
look like, and so we've been working on that. We
started a process of looking for opportunities use to invest
in the sector and a broad Tech Group was one
(19:03):
that popped up and met a number of the criteria
and so we signed an agreement. Interestingly, broad Tech Group,
we didn't realize that we'll have to sign it the
day that we signed with broad Tech. Broad Tech had
just on that very day, had its fiftieth birthday. So
it's a company that requires fifty years old in New Zealand.
(19:26):
And it started out with Radio Heneque, building the first
commercial antenna site for Radio HOGEG. So its genesis is
in the broadcasting and radio and television and then more
lately it's gotten too telecommunications. So we've had that just
over a year now and supporting that and growing that organization,
(19:46):
and so that's been a fantastic acquisition.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It sure has people probably haven't heard as much about
broad Tech. It's sort of a behind the scenes provide
a little bit in some respects like Cordia, the state
owned enterprise, it does a lot of broadcasting stuff as well,
does some stuff there. But now you have this organization
with what over one hundred staff.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, it's roughly, I mean it varies, but including subcontracts,
is over one hundred staff and working right across the industry.
So not only in television and radio. I've up working
for the three molebil operators, but one or two degrees
that tower companies can exterin forty south ICG and currently
doing for MGC.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So you've got this what fifty megahertz chunk of five
G spectrum. There was some money involved as well that
allowed you to make that acquisition. So what's the plan
Now you've got this incredible resource. Tell us about some
of the projects that you have underway that ultimately are
going to lead to this becoming sustainable financially, you know,
(20:46):
a really solid business, but also is going to flow
back to MARI in terms of MARI development and opportunities
for career development.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
When we, of course we're negotiating for access to five
G spectrum, of course, the natural response for a number
of people who is what the heck are you're going
to use it for. One of the things that we
said right from the very start is we think there's
an opportunity to develop private five G networks. That's you know,
(21:15):
four G networks have been around for a while, but
the opportunity to play in the five G space was
we thought was a natural place for us to go to.
We are not going to go and try and compete
and do another two degrees. We've done that job. What
we want to do now is look at some of
the other ways that we can help improve productivity, health
and safety using wildest technologies and particular g widest technologies.
(21:39):
So that was where that was our starting point. The
way in which the technology is configured is different because
the use cases different. Here what mobile operators primarily get
their money from shipping data down to the devices, whereas
were the other way around. We want to ship data up.
Trying to manage configuration, which has been mandated here in
(22:02):
New Zealand, where we've done a lot of works. What
happens if you do try and change the way in
which the configuration works. How much does that create interference?
What are the impacts on the other operators? So we
did a lot of work in that space. So building
up our capacity and capability in the private five G
private networks was really important for us. And then going
(22:23):
on and investing in the space and putting our money
where our mouth was and going and winning a Centapore
was important for us because we believe that there was
the things that you can do with this technology that
you know, if you talk to the Centable guys, they're
all about half and safety, make sure their people are
safe and how can they deploy technology. So they've tried
(22:44):
using the Meno mobile networks on the site, but it
doesn't work for them because they've got a really great
park right next door to them. Every time some rugby
game or some concerts on, it sucks up all the
bandwidths and they're left with none. So private five G
networks is the way to go for them.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Wellington's one of the busiest ports in the country. Actually,
it's got all the ferries that comes through Bluebridge and
interil NERD's got the logging ships going out, container ships
coming in. Incredibly busy, large campus there. As you say,
you've got the sky Stadium on one side, and I
didn't realize as well, but when ships pull up there.
You've got these massive, big steel hulled ships there which
(23:21):
interfere with the mobile networks as well. So to actually
build your own network with your own cell towers on
the site, they will have exclusive use of that better
than Wi Fi and not competing with others on the
public mobile network.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
That's right, and there's some particular challenges in that space.
You've got ship that comes in, you've got containers that
gets plopped in front of the radios. It's a continuously
changing environment. It's something that we'd like to spend some
more time researching on as to how you can actually
create a really good service inside a changing environment like that.
And so we just recently partnered up with aut to
(23:59):
look research project in which you can have configurrale antennas
rather than the static ones that we have at the moment.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
This will be the first commercial private five G network.
We've heard so much about these, mainly from the mobile vendors.
They've really been pushing them. Some of them have sort
of been put in place in other countries, mainly at
airport's big factories where they have a lot of devices
that need to connect in real time. So they want
low latency connections has been very slow to come to
(24:29):
New Zealand. But the resources you have, particularly with that
five G spectrum, that really gives you an advantage when
it comes to private five gen.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Well, yes it does, but it's not We're not relying
on that on its owning. We've still got to be innovative.
We've still going to deliver a great product and a
great service. While the spectrum side of it is important,
in my mind, that shouldn't be the deciding vector. That's
the service that you're developing and providing, and so ultimately
we just want to be the service provider providing innovative solutions.
(25:00):
We don't necessarily have to own the relationship with the
end customer. But what we do want to do is
to generate interest in this area and to generate opportunities.
So since the Centerble announcement, of course, now we've got
a whole range of boards around the country who are
all looking to do similar things, which is great.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, and you aren't in competition necessarily with the big
three mobile operators. As you say, you know, you don't
need to own the end customer, and those guys have
a lot of customers already. So there's huge scope for
partnership there.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I guess, look, that's what that's our end game and
all of this, and from time to time we will
compete with the mobile operators I expect, but that's not
our fundamental strategies to go get to ed with. What
we do want to do is to generate interest. We
want to be able to be innovative. You know, the
mobile operators are facing a challenging time at the moment.
(25:53):
They're having to continue to invest in new technologies as
they come along. In five G S eight RN would
of course still be the retorations over time, and then
of course there will be other spectrum bands that potentially
they mightey have to invest in. At the same time,
they've got a customer base that is wanting to pay
less and expecting to get higher speeds and greater value
(26:15):
out of what they're spending on telecommunications. And then you
have the other part of this is the vendor environment,
whereby of course you've got the geopolitical challenges with Huawei,
who have provided some kind of competitive tension. I guess
amongst the vendors now you're probably down to two major
vendors now, and then of course the move to cloud
(26:38):
based solutions and virtualized services, and of course the only way,
the only way that mobile operators long term are going
to be able to survive, I think is they need
to be thinking about how do we reduce our cost
of infrastructure, both in terms of their investment upfront and
their ongoing maintenance costs, so you know we want to
(26:59):
pay it.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, that's brilliant, and we've got technologies like open ran,
you know, the radio access network being able to share
that not everyone having to build their own one, as
you say, infrastructure sharing. When you talk to the telcos,
they're like, you know, this is a low margin business
and they thought five G would be the one that
added a premium. It hasn't worked out that way, so
they're going to be reluctant to invest in six G
(27:22):
unless it's going to lead to a big revenue boost
for them.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
That's right, and thinking about how that ecosystem fits together.
So open ram is a really good example. You know,
how how do you mix and match. There's some real
advantages in buying all of your product from one vendor,
but there's also some advantages and going open rounds such
as Vada Phones doing over in Europe. So our guys
(27:45):
have been experimenting and can now connect a range of
different calls to radios. We have a range of different radios,
We've got three different calls, and we can mix and
match all of those radios with all of our call
with three different calls. So that's the stuff that takes
a bit of time to develop. Yeah, and then of
course it's about then matching what are the technologies that
(28:07):
best match the use case that we're trying to solve
this particular project.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So hopefully this becomes a really financially successful venture and
therefore the proceeds the dividends of that will go back
to MARII. In terms of someone who's sitting in Northland
or the East Cape at the moment and can afford broadband,
it's really expensive. That's where the digital divide still really exists.
Is there anything on the roadmap where you might be
(28:35):
able to use that spectrum and your infrastructure expertise to
provide low cost or no cost broadband maybe via EWE
organizations to people who are left out at the moment.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That's an ongoing challenge to solve that digital equity problem.
I am a little bit cautious to take too much
of that on our own shoulders, because at the end
of the day, this is a government responsibility to make
sure that all New Zealanders get equitable access to telecommunications.
What we can do is think about what are some
of the other innovative solutions that will help. So one
(29:07):
of the things that we have been thinking about is
what happens in times of climate events. How can we
help communities build a resilient tele communications of a structure
they can turn on when their existing one fails for
whatever reason that might be. And so we've been experimenting
and building some prototypes around a very small mobile tem
(29:31):
that can automatically stand up a mobile network or a
Wi Fi network. It's low power ideally for us, that
will be run for months on end without the intervention.
So we do quite a bit of work to think
about what that might look like. And I think that
if we can, as we continue to iterate on the
work that we're doing in that space, there will be
opportunities for us to provide communities with the ability to
(29:53):
be stand alone. Because one of the things that we
had cyclone Gabriel, we had that resilient We talked about
how do you provide more resilience. The problem is that
one way that what to provide resilience is what more
batteries and what more generators? In more generators and you
only shift your supply chain problem to gasoline as opposed
(30:14):
to power. Having a solution which is only driven from
one end, and my view doesn't work. You need to
be able to give communities their own ability to be
able to resilient in their own space and not have
to rely completely on command and control from a central point.
And so that's what I'd like to see is that
(30:36):
we engage communities more in those things that are important
to them.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
There's there young Mari people out there who want to
get into technology. You are the only person in the
class as an electrical engineer all those decades ago. But
now potentially if people are interested in a career in telecommunications,
they have a pathway.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Now.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Obviously there still good courses in that getting a job
there are the three telcos, but particularly for MARI engineers,
you've got an organization here that part of its remit
is to support that workforce. That's a huge opportunity.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
So that's the part that we haven't talked too much about.
And that's what is the value for MARII out of
all this, because we're not doing this for sharhold returns.
So we're doing this because we think there's some value
that we can return to mari and to New Zealanders
are particularly the industry. So if you look at radio
engineers typically in New Zealand, they have all been trained, well,
(31:31):
we're almost all near retirement. We're training through the Post
Office days and BCL and all those government organizations. We
haven't had those training programs in place for a long time,
and so we're short of people with those skills and capability,
and they tend to be filled by bringing people offshore,
which is fine, but you've also got to be building
(31:52):
your own locals who have that opportunity to play the space. Now,
if you look at the engineering schools today, people thought
there used to be there a very different place and
really really pleased, you know, want to walk into these
engineering schools to see the range of people that are
there now as opposed to what it used to look like.
So it's fantastic. So what we're doing is that we've
(32:13):
got in place our relationships with tertiary educations to try
and promote the idea of telecommunications as a valid career path,
and of course there are a whole range of different
employment pathways. We are focusing at the moment on the
engineering site, but that's not the only place that they
will be focusing. So for example, we've got two engineers
(32:34):
that we pulled out we just completed their engineering degree
Canterbury too young many and we've brought them up to
Auckland and they are now becoming experts on deploying five G.
That's something that is you wouldn't get anywhere else. What
we want to do is to work with the industry
and come up with a program of internships that allows
people to get around a build experience in the industry.
(32:56):
So first of all, attract people into the industry, and
there's a whole pipeline. It's all the way back to
making sure that we've got the right students who are
being service schooled in STEM subjects, who are getting through
into the tertiary training, given the right work experience and
given a positive work experience, and then showing the choice
of roles and the choice of industry participants. So each
(33:20):
of the big em and o's and the big telcos
in our space they're all doing stuff in the space.
It's great, but there is no integrated approach to doing this,
unlike the energy sector, which does have an integrated approach
to attracting people into their sector. That's the role that
we hope that we can work with the telcos and
(33:40):
facilitate these opportunities. That's one part is the workforce and
of course the innovation space. We want to continue to
think about how do you use wildest technologies to help
solve real world problems. How our argument is this is
that you give us access to the resources should have
access to spectrum, we will build platforms upon which people
(34:00):
use that resource to innovate and create IP. And this
is the bigger you know, New Zealand Inc. Argument is
that thinking about spectrum resource, our spectrum resource, not just
as something that can be used to provide some services.
Consumers will pay some money to the companies and you know,
will be sweet thinking about how do we use that
(34:22):
access the spectrum to generate further IP which is of
interest to people off shore. So ultimately, long term, the
goal is to be innovative enough that you know, we
can build some companies who generate offshore revenue as a
result of our skills and exertise here in your seeland.
That the great thing about New Zealand is will be
small enough and edgile enough to do this. Trying to
(34:44):
do this in other countries is really, really hard.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I just want to say, you know, congratulations on all
our hard work paying off. Now you've got a sustainable business,
You've got in perpetuity. You've got this great tongue in
the form of Malori Spectrum. You're getting engineers that probably
wouldn't have had an opportunity before going into the industry.
It looks like a great opportunity. You've got the five
(35:08):
G private network going live at Centerport. You a first
in this country. I guess you've laid the groundwork for
what could be a really successful venture that actually really
does have impact for Mari.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, we look, we're looking forward to I mean that
the technology stuff is really great, but what's important for
us is thinking about what's best for Mary and what's
best for alt at all, and that's really where we
want to play.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So thanks to Anthony Royle for coming on the podcast.
Some details about what Tuiteya is working on in the
show notes. You'll find them in the podcast section at
Business deesk dot co dot nz. Get in touch with
your feedback, ideas and guest suggestions. Email me on Peter
at Peter Griffin dot co dot nz or you'll easily
find me on linkin Blue Sky. Feel free to slide
(36:02):
into my DMS. Next week, Sarah Box, one of the
countries leading artificial intelligence policy experts, joins us on the show.
She's helping the government shape its approach to AI following
a stint in the US last year that took in
Trump's victory in the November presidential election, which ushered in
a significant change in direction for AI policy and regulation
(36:25):
in the US, which has truly global ramifications. If you're
listening on iHeartRadio, you can also subscribe to the podcast
in your podcast app of choice. Leave a review too
if you like the show, and we'll see you back
here next Thursday with me Peter Griffin for another episode
of the Business of Tech.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Catch it in
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