Copyright © 1996 to Bruce Simpson
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ISPANZ Announces Their Position Copyright © 1996 to Bruce Simpson |
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The war between Xtra and the other fifty or so independent ISPs around
NZ is hotting up with an announcement from ISPANZ (the Internet Service
Providers Association of New Zealand).
According to Karyn Winder, business manager of Southern Internet, ISPANZ members have identified a broad range of measures that will be prepared to use if Xtra continue to use their unique position to assist in what appears to be a move towards total market domination of the internet in New Zealand. Apart from the business issues, ISPs are emphasizing the threat to the diversity and quality of the internet content being created by so many of the small players within the industry.
"Xtra intends to promote the Internet as an advertising medium,
turning New Zealand's highly diversified information highway into
a selected group of sites picked only for their ability to pay the
advertising cost. Rather than having access to a wide variety of
sites, Internet users may be faced with one site (Xtra), and like
the current state of public TV, bombarded with bland advertisements
and little content", says Winder.
It's not only the ISPs who are concerned about Xtra's new tactics, web designers are also worried. Peter Hyde, web development manager for SPIS Ltd says, "Telecom don't generally offer what we need and, if they end up as a de facto monopoly, it would be extremely difficult to hold them to the standards of excellence and range of services we need to operate in the highly competitive international web market". More news on this story as it comes to hand... |