The funniest thing happened on Friday, I took a friend to...

The funniest thing happened on Friday, I took a friend to collect his newly repaired car from a smash repairer in Osborne Park, I had to go down the road a bit to park and whose office do you think I parked in front of? You guessed it, my friend suggested I go in for a chat while he collected his car so I did and stayed the best part of the most informative hour I've had in a very long time.

Firstly as to announcement timing he obviously can't commit to anything because it really is up to Telstra but Campbell is hopeful it will come in days he expects two announcements the first confirming successful completion of the trial and commencement of roll out negotiations the second at completion of negotiations detailing the roll out and business case. Won't that make the fundamental analysts happy.

I've seen and photographed the phones at Perth Airport but haven't used one, I was treated to a full demonstration of the webphone which really blew me away it can do far more than I ever imagined and its revenue generating power through sponsorship is enormous. Once you go past the make a call page you reach a page full of service icons, the top is pay per use and the bottom is free to use being sponsored by the service provider.

The phones at Melbourne Airport have an icon specifically for new Chinese visitors to the city everything is in Mandarin it is full of useful information it even explains how to catch a cab, each phone is individually programmable to its geographic area there is a yellow pages icon which knows its location so when used will show local businesses first, why would YP not want to have it there? The phones are profitable on coins alone but this is where the real money is, for example there is currently a pay per use Google icon lets say Yahoo decide they want to take the fight to Google so provide a free icon how long to you recon it will take Google to match Yahoo? bingo two free search icons for the punters but Telstra/Pie get paid per use and lets not limit ourselves to search engines what I've just proposed applies to any business that is after extra customers and has competition, another hypothetical CBA have an icon allowing free internet connection for account holders, again how long before the other banks follow suite.

Think for a moment about the growth of ATMs in this country, they started slowly and as people became comfortable using them their growth took off exponentially, we probably can't live without them now even private providers have entered the market.

I haven't touched on the wifi capability yet, everything you see on the webphone will appear on the screen of a mobile device connected via wifi freeing up space on the 3G network and then ther's the power of branding.

Why Telstra?
From a PIE perspective that really is a no brainer, they are the biggest telco, they have everything in place already to make this really fly such as phone sights, maintenance and cleaning crews and a dedicated sales force for starters.

From a Telstra perspective PIE have arguably the state of the art product this is about branding, market penetration, gaining new customers and retaining existing ones by staying ahead of the pack.

USO implications
I'm convinced that once this is rolled out and people become familiar with it we will see exponential growth in the cities with this phone or a variant of it being the norm, what then of USO? Under USO all Australians are guaranteed access to basic public phone service so if PIEs webphone becomes the basic phone in the cities, why not the rest of the country, after this week's announcement funding shouldn't be an issue.

International implications
PIE have had or are having discussions through business partners with telcos all round the world including China and there is a test phone in Mexico but all that is on the back burner while Telstra is the current main focus. PIE won't be running off setting up satellite offices around the world but prefer the JV or partnership model, imagine a JV with a company the likes of Sony Erricson for example, wow wouldn't that be sensational they're already dealing with the worlds major telcos.

Management and Board personell
From my two previous phone conversations I'm impressed with Campbell, doubly so now after meeting him he is in my view the right person for his position, as to the recent high power additions to the board I see it as a case of right people, right place and right time.

Oh almost forgot to mention

I'M EXCITED

Toski