cfh-site

99.8% of Telecom NZ shareholders approve structural separation

2011-10-27T22:19:00.000-07:00

Telecom New Zealand shareholders have voted to approve the structural separation of the company, with 99.8% deciding in favour of the large-scale operational demerger. The news was reportedly broken to shareholders at the company’s Annual General Meeting at the Sky City convention centre in Auckland earlier today. Stuff.co.nz quotes chief executive Paul Reynolds as saying: ‘The shareholder vote marks a critical step in the creation of an entirely new structure for the telecommunications industry in New Zealand. We are very pleased to have received our shareholders’ consent for this significant step, and Telecom’s focus is now on the swift enactment of the split, along with ensuring both companies are well positioned as New Zealand moves into the fibre future’. The legalities of the separation are due to be completed by 30 November.

As noted by TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Telecom’s imminent structural separation has been necessitated by the company’s selection by government agency Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH) to roll out the bulk of the country’s Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative. In May 2011 Telecom was awarded contracts covering 24 urban areas (including Auckland and Wellington), effectively bringing the long-running selection process to an end. As part of the agreement Telecom agreed to structurally separate its infrastructure business unit, Chorus, from the rest of the company. Going forward, Chorus will operate as a nationwide fixed line access network operator, offering services on an ‘open access’ basis, whilst ‘Telecom’ will function as a retail-focused telecoms business, comprising fixed, mobile and ICT operations.

Source http://www.telegeography.com/products/commsupdate/articles/2011/10/26/99-8-of-telecom-nz-shareholders-approve-structural-separation/

Obama to return home for Wednesday fundraiser

2011-08-02T01:15:00.000-07:00

The sound of helicopters over Chicago's lakefront Monday signaled the practice drills that accompany a presidential visit.

And with Congress poised to act on a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, President Barack Obama's plans are back on to return to his hometown and raise some money.

Obama is scheduled to attend a 50th birthday gala Wednesday at the Aragon. It's an event featuring Herbie Hancock and Jennifer Hudson, who also helped new Mayor Rahm Emanuel raise money with a January performance.

The president will turn 50 on Thursday.

Big-dollar donors will attend a dinner fundraiser along with the concert at a cost of $35,800 a person. As has been the practice, the money raised will be divided between Obama's 2012 re-election fund and the Democratic National Committee.

Obama's trip home had been in doubt during the lengthy debt ceiling and deficit debate in Washington, until the president announced Sunday that a deal had been reached with House and Senate leaders.

The Republican National Committee criticized Obama, saying that instead of planning a fundraiser after weeks of political gridlock regarding the debt ceiling, the nation's 9.2 percent unemployment rate "might be the next thing to tackle."

In April, Obama was home for the first time since formally announcing his re-election bid. An estimated 2,300 people paid $100 to $250 to hear him speak at Navy Pier's Grand Ballroom.

Last month, the president's re-election effort reported collecting $86 million during the second quarter of the year. That easily outdistanced the amounts raised by his Republican opponents. Obama raised more than $47 million through his presidential campaign and an additional $38 million-plus with the DNC, which can collect much larger sums.

Source http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-obama-chicago-visit-20110802,0,1566009.story

CFH letter of intent is no contract: WorldxChange

2011-03-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Last week Crown Fibre Holdings issued a release stating 13 service providers have signed a letter of intent to sell the new Ultra Fast Broadband service to customers.

But what exactly is a letter of intent?

Computerworld asked CFH for a copy but it refused and instead sent the following description by email: “This means potential Retail Service Providers have agreed to negotiate in good faith to access UFB wholesale services and package them for sale to retail customers at the indicative prices provided by CFH.”

So Computerworld contacted WorldxChange founder Paul Clarkin whose company is one of the 13 providers.

He says its contents are confidential, but that it is not a contract to provide services. It couldn’t be because Clarkin says, there are too many unknowns about the UFB.

“Provided all the commercial contracts stack up, the access and the backhaul and OSS and BSS and all the other stuff. The CPE, the deployment models, pretty much everything they haven’t done; provided that’s all sorted out and it’s still commercially attractive for us, then yeah, we’ll be there.”

He says that until WorldxChange know what the backhaul and hand-over costs are going to be, he can’t make any comment as to whether wholesale prices – announced in the first LFC deals – will be attractive enough for his company to deploy services.

“If they just hurry up and announce who has won it they can probably move onto the next step, which is trying to convince guys like us that the model is, in a real-world, viable. If you can’t make money out of it, then we’re not interested in doing it. It is a simple fact of life.”

WorldxChange’s FTTH service

Clarkin believes WorldxChange is the most experienced ISP in the country when it comes to deploying residential services over a fibre connection. It has worked with Chorus for four years deploying fibre-based services in more than 40 subdivisions nationwide.

Its two FTTH plans are:

* $45 a month for a VoIP phone services and an internet connection that will operate two-three times faster than DSL during peak periods.

* $99 a month for a VoIP line and internet service with 30Mbps down and 6Mbps up. That pays for the access service, and customers buy data at $1.50 a GB and pay for the calls they make.

He says there is an extra layer of complexity when deploying over fibre because the customer has two ‘boxes’ in their house as opposed to one. “Whereas with DSL services the physical copper line will terminate inside our residential gateway, the fibre terminates inside the infrastructure company, whether it be Chorus or LFC, into their box and then we put a cable between their box and ours.”

Clarkin says the company has also developed ways of providing battery back up in the case of an emergency. While WorldxChange has been able to provide a residential fibre service it has been in greenfield sites — brand new houses that have structured cabling.

But Clarkin says deploying Ethernet in a house that was built 30-40 years ago is a more complex challenge.

UFB won’t work without Telecom

“My own personal view is that if Telecom does not win it, [UFB] is going to be an absolute cock up,” Clarkin says.

“It will make a hell of difference if Telecom wins the rest of the areas as far as implementation phase, because you just have to connect to one system and you’ve got 80 percent of the country. If you’ve got different LFCs in each region, they’re all going to implement the same standards — in theory — but at different times.”

Business case for FTTH is difficult

He says copper is still viable and customers just don’t have a reason to switch to fibre. “Schools, hospitals, there’s no argument there [for fibre services]. It’s when you start coming down to a family residence that only wants to [spend] $40 to $50 a month for decent broadband speeds, it’s harder to achieve those prices in a fibre world, than it is with copper.”

“It goes back to ‘what is the problem you are going to solve?’. You can go and build this network, spend $1.5 billion but if you can’t convince any service provider or incentivise them enough to convince his customers to move to fibre – what’s the point?"

In the press release issued by CFH announcing the signatories to the letter of intent CFH CEO Graham Mitchell wrote: “We’ve worked hard to make wholesale services affordable and we’re delighted that this has been acknowledged in the strong interest received from so many retail service providers.”

TUANZ CEO Paul Brislen is also quoted in the release: “It’ll be great to see some retail prices out there so our users can plan their future telecommunications spend.”

Yet, according to Clarkin at WorldxChange, TUANZ members would be advised to hang fire on the calculations.

“I am unable to provide you retail prices over the UFB because I do not have enough input to calculate what my pricing is. If I had information so I could go to market tomorrow then I would have signed a different document. I would have signed a contract.”

Thirteen providers that signed CFH letter of intent

• CallPlus (Slingshot)

• FX Networks

• Kordia

• MaxNet

• Orcon

• Rural Link (Hamilton)

• TrustPower Kinect (Tauranga)

• Uber Group (Whangarei)

• Velocity Networks (Hamilton)

• Vodafone

• Woosh

• WorldxChange

• XfNet (Whangarei)

Source http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/cfh-letter-of-intent-is-no-contract-worldxchange

The Edible Yard: Landscaping and Permaculture

2011-03-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

Instead of heading to the market for fruits, vegetables, and herbs, imagine they are instantly accessible, and planted in a lovely way throughout the yard around the house.

Edible landscaping is an age-old art undergoing a recent revival. But it has existed for as long as gardening itself.

While some homeowners are realizing the benefits—spending more time in nature, saving on grocery bills, and controlling what, if any, pesticides and herbicides are used on their foods—others connect with deeper principles, such as the approach of permaculture.

Chandra Hartman, of CFH Design Studio and Moonlight Micro-Farms, says, “Many people are just waking up to the idea that our food supply may not be as secure as we once believed.”

CFH Design Studio is an architectural design business that Hartman began in 2000, focusing on coastal residential design. Moonlight Micro-Farms sells heirloom seeds, organic sprouts, and offers permaculture design that is geared toward aesthetic beauty and reclaiming a piece of our natural heritage.

Hartman says her own interest in edible landscaping is rooted in a desire to be self- and community-reliant in a time when our freedoms are being challenged by corporate control and environmental degradation.

She considers herself more of an ecological designer than a landscaper, “someone who likes to think about the what-ifs.”

The Essentials

Some gardeners and landscapers describe how to begin the process: Walk the yard. Map out a plan on paper. Study the percentage of sun exposure in each part of the yard. Plan accordingly with proper plants and soil types.

Hartman says that when a client expresses interest in edible landscaping, she must first determine if the site offers an opportunity for growing food and the client’s level of participation in the garden. Based on these two factors, she will determine the type and level of edible landscaping appropriate.

Hartman earned a degree in Sustainable Community Development from Prescott College, where she became interested in permaculture. She says, “The first ethic of permaculture is to care for the earth. I am constantly observing my immediate environment and thinking of ways to interact with it that will be mutually beneficial.”

A small, yet valuable niche, according to Harman, is the market for wild edibles. She says free food and medicine grows all around us and we don’t even know it. “This is a lost art – gathering or foraging – that I believe is important for us to re-learn before we completely lose our connection with nature.”

Source http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/business/the-edible-yard-landscaping-and-permaculture-52898.html

Largest protest yet fails to sway state lawmakers

2011-02-21T02:21:00.001-08:00

Sometimes they cursed each other, sometimes they shook hands, sometimes they walked away from each other in disgust.

None of it — not the ear-splitting chants, the pounding drums or the back-and-forth debate between 70,000 protesters — changed the minds of Wisconsin lawmakers dug into a stalemate over Republican efforts to scrap union rights for almost all public workers.

“The people who are not around the Capitol square are with us,’’ said Rep. Robin Vos, a Republican from Rochester and co-chair of the Legislature’s budget committee. “They may have a bunch around the square, but we’ve got the rest on our side.’’

After nearly a week of political chaos in Madison, during which tens of thousands of pro-labor protesters turned the Capitol into a campsite that had started to smell like a locker room, supporters of Gov. Scott Walker came out in force Saturday.

They gathered on the muddy east lawn of the Capitol and were soon surrounded by a much larger group of union supporters who countered their chants of “Pass the bill! Pass the bill!’’ with chants of “Kill the bill! Kill the bill!’’

“Go home!’’ union supporters yelled at Scott Lemke, a 46-year-old machine parts salesman from Cedarburg who wore a hard hat and carried a sign that read “If you don’t like it, quit’’ on one side, and “If you don’t like that, try you’re fired’’ on the other.

A lone demonstrator stood between the crowds, saying nothing and holding a sign: “I’m praying that we can all respect each other. Let’s try to understand each other.’’

The Wisconsin governor, elected in November’s GOP wave that also gave control of the state Assembly and Senate to Republicans, set off the protests earlier this week by pushing ahead with a measure that would require government workers to contribute more to their health care and pension costs and largely eliminate their collective bargaining rights.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said the crowds that have gotten bigger each day have yet to win over any member of his caucus.

“What they’re getting from individuals back home is stick to your guns, don’t let them get to you,’’ Fitzgerald said. “Every senator I’ve spoken to today is getting that back home, which is awesome. It’s great to hear from people who are part of a rally ... (but) two people you meet at a fish fry or a person who comes up to you at a basketball game, those comments sink in.’’

Fitzgerald and other Republicans say the concessions are needed to deal with the state’s projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall and to avoid layoffs of government workers. The move to restrict union rights has also taken hold in other states, including Tennessee and Indiana, where lawmakers have advanced bills to restrict bargaining for teachers’ unions.

The throngs of Walker supporters who arrived in Madison on Saturday for an afternoon rally organized by Tea Party Patriots, the movement’s largest umbrella group, and Americans for Prosperity, carried signs with a fresh set of messages: “Your Gravy Train Is Over ... Welcome to the Recession’’ and “Sorry, we’re late Scott. We work for a living.’’

“We pay the bills!’’ tea party favorite Herman Cain yelled to cheers from the pro-Walker crowd. “This is why you elected Scott Walker, and he’s doing his job. ... Wisconsin is broke. My question for the other side is, ‘What part of broke don’t you understand?’’’

Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate, short of the votes needed to keep Republicans from passing the so-called “budget repair’’ bill, fled the state on Thursday. They haven’t been seen since, and said Saturday they are more resolved than ever to stay away “as long as it takes’’ until Walker agrees to negotiate.

“I don’t think he’s really thought it through, to be honest,’’ Democratic Sen. Jon Erpenbach, of Middleton, said Saturday.

Democrats offered again Saturday to agree to the parts of Walker’s proposal, so long as workers retain their right to negotiate with the state as a union.

Fitzgerald said that’s an offer the GOP has rejected for months. The restrictions on collective bargaining rights are necessary so that local governments and the state have the flexibility needed to balance budgets after cuts Walker plans to announce next month, he said.

Walker, who was spending time with his family Saturday and didn’t appear in public, also rejected the Democrats offer. His spokesman, Cullen Werwie, said the fastest way to end the stalemate was for Democrats to return and “do their jobs.’’

Madison police estimated that 60,000 or more people were outside the Capitol on Saturday, with up to 8,000 more inside. The normally an immaculate building had become a mess of mud-coated floors that reeked from days of protesters standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

Police spokesman Joel DeSpain said there were no arrests or problems during Saturday’s protests. “We’ve seen and shown the world that in Madison, Wis., we can bring people together who disagree strongly on a bill in a peaceful way,’’ he said.

Steve Boss, 26, a refrigerator technician from Oostburg, carried a sign that read “The Protesters Are All ‘Sick’ — Wash your Hands,’’ a reference to the teacher sick-outs that swelled crowds at the Capitol to 40,000 people Friday and raised the noise in its rotunda to earsplitting levels. Boss said the cuts Walker has proposed were painful but needed to fix the state’s financial problems.

“It’s time to address the issue. They (public workers) got to take the same cuts as everyone else,’’ he said. “It’s a fairness thing.’’

Doctors from numerous hospitals set up a station near the Capitol to provide notes to explain public employees’ absences from work. Family physician Lou Sanner, 59, of Madison, said he had given out hundreds of notes. Many of the people he spoke with seemed to be suffering from stress, he said.

“What employers have a right to know is if the patient was assessed by a duly licensed physician about time off of work,’’ Sanner said. “Employers don’t have a right to know the nature of that conversation or the nature of that illness. So it’s as valid as every other work note that I’ve written for the last 30 years.’’

John Black, 46, of Madison, said he came out to the rallies in order to help bridge the gap between the pro-labor protesters and Walker’s supporters. He carried signs that asked for a compromise on the budget bill while a friend’s son handed out purple flowers.

“We liked Scott Walker as a change agent, but he moved too quickly and because of that there’s always room for compromise,’’ Black said.

Source http://chippewa.com/news/local/article_0f8fb15a-3ca0-11e0-bc71-001cc4c03286.html?mode=story

Telecom first-half earnings slide 32pc

2011-02-11T00:34:00.001-08:00

Telecom, the country's second biggest listed company, reported a 32 per cent slide in first-half profit as earnings shrank in its fixed, mobile and data businesses.

The Auckland-based company reported a net profit of $165 million in the six months ended December 31, compared to $243 million a year earlier, coming in slightly short of brokers' expectations.

See the company's investor presentation here.

The result was heavily influenced by a $53 million increase in tax compared with the same period a year earlier. Statutory earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was down just 0.2 per cent at $870 million, in line with analsyts' predictions.

Revenue shrank 2.6 per cent to $2.6 billion, with only interconnection fees and IT services lifting sales, while Telecom's cost-cutting measures saw expenses shrink 3.8 per cent in the period.

Adjusted net profit, which includes natural disaster and ultra-fast broadband costs and the gain on the sale of its AAPT consumer division, sank 35 per cent to $158 million.

"A continued strong focus on operational excellence and cost control has helped to offset increased tax and ongoing regulatory impacts," said chief executive Paul Reynolds in a statement.

"Telecom's strategy has been updated to drive better product, platform and process outcomes for customers, create a leaner operating model, and an intense focus on free cash flow through management of capital and operating costs."

The phone company cut its forecast capital expenditure to a range of between $950 million and $1 billion from a previous $1 billion to $1.1 billion as uncertainty about its inclusion in the government's ultra-fast broadband initiative still hangs over its future.

Telecom will pay a dividend of 7 cents a share for the period. The shares fell 0.9 per cent to $2.19 in trading yesterday, and have gained 1.8 per cent since the start of this year.

Earnings guidance for the full financial year is for adjusted EBITDA of between $1.72 billion and $1.78 billion, with increases over the following two years of between $20 million and $80 million.

However, these forecasts do not account for the impact of the UFB project, which Telecom says "is likely to reshape the industry."

The company's retail unit boosted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation by 36 per cent to $240 million, the biggest gain among the units, as it bounced back from the high costs related to the stilted launch of its XT mobile network.

Mobile revenue shrank 3.7 per cent in the period. The Chorus unit increased earnings 1.6 per cent to $391 million, while Gen-i lifted EBITDA 6.1 per cent to $105 million.

The corporate unit lifted EBITDA 5.6 per cent to $38 million. Wholesale and international earnings more than halved to $46 million as its internal charges to Chorus climbed by the same amount.

- AAPT earnings sank 28 per cent to $48 million after the perennial underperforming Australian unit divested its consumer division.

This was the first half-yearly announcement by Telecom since it decided to return to six-monthly reports from its previous quarterly updates.

Telecom has been short-listed for a large chunk of the $1.35 billion government-funded ultra-fast broadband network initiative, including the all-important Auckland market.

Last week, it was confirmed as front-runner in a joint venture with mobile rival Vodafone New Zealand Ltd. for the government's $300 million rural broadband initiative. Prime Minister John Key told Parliament this week he expects to legislate for the UFB regulatory framework by the middle of the year.

The phone company's involvement in the government projects will only be possible if it carves out its Chorus network infrastructure unit as a separate entity in return for significant regulatory relief on its existing copper-line network.

Last month, Telecom pushed out the timeline for such a demerger as it continues to negotiate with the government's Crown Fibre Holdings, which is managing the UFB process, and Reynolds said the company's still in discussions with CFH and the Ministry of Economic Development.

Source http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10705406

CFH offers postcard lamination as standard to solve scuffing issue

2011-01-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

Mailing specialist CFH Docmail has claimed that it is the UK's only hybrid mail company to offer laminated postcards as standard after a double installation.

The Norton Padstock-based firm has installed a Tauler CTi75 laminator and Schneider 78CP programmable guillotine both from Friedheim International.

All of its A5 and A6 postcards will now be laminated to meet "stringent quality requirements", the firm said.

Managing director Dave Broadway said that many of the company’s cards were being damaged en route, with toner being scuffed and smeared because they were not protected well enough.

"Customers need their postcards to arrive looking fresh, presentable and professional," he said. "As such we would not expect them to purchase a product that was not meeting our own high requirements.

"As a matter of urgency, we started to look at the various options. Laminating the cards has proved to be the best solution to the scuffing issue. As a result of this investment, we are, we believe, the only hybrid mail firm to offer laminated postcards as standard."

Broadway added that the company had decided not to increase the cost of production, despite the hefty investment. The price of 27p plus vat for a duplex full colour A6 and 29p for A5 including postage will remain.

He said: "Now customers will get the benefit of a laminated product for the same price. Our volumes mean that the on cost of laminating is low, so we decided not to pass it on."

The Tauler Cti75 sheet to sheet laminator uses thermal technology, incorporating a system of plastic laminated sheet separation.

Source http://www.printweek.com/postpress/news/1050609/CFH-offers-postcard-lamination-standard-solve-scuffing-issue/