Media thread (advertising, blogs, write ups etc), page-30

AFR interview after the mobile spectrum auction a few weeks back .

cheers

https://www.afr. com/technology/video-game-strategy-helped-small-isp-battle-giants-for-spectrum-20210503-p57oay
Video game strategy helped small ISP battle giants for spectrum
Lucas BairdReporter
May 10, 2021 – 12.11pm

Civilization VI – the latest in a decades-old series of empire-building strategy video games – has an unexpected relationship to the $650 million auction of super-fast millimetre wave mobile spectrum.

It, and not regular bidding war tactics, is what Pentanet founder Stephen Cornish credits for his company’s successful $8 million tilt for key space on the bedrock of future 5G networks.
Pentanet secured 200MHz of 26GHz spectrum bandwidth in its native Perth late last month, a coup that will boost the company’s ability to compete with major players while building out its core fixed-wireless product in the west.


Stephen Cornish, middle, reckons the spectrum auction was comparatively simple when compared to a game of Civilization VI. He is pictured with CFO Mart-Marie Derman and executive director Tim Cornish. Louie Douvis
Cornish says the auction was the “perfect ground” for his team of gamers, pointing out that Pentanet did not have the massive cash reserves of its rival bidders.
“We had to and were able to manoeuvre a little more,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“There was very little chance that we could get some of the spectrum, as the others have got some very deep pockets, but it later became clear that it would be irresponsible for us not to take part in the auction.
“It really became a strategic game of chess.”

Pentanet ended up paying just short of $8 million for its four slots, putting its spending on a per-allotment basis in line with that of Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom.

The big three spent about $600 million, collectively. Telstra got a total of 1000MHz in all major capital cities and regional areas; Optus purchased a total of 800MHz in the mainland capital cities, with 600Mhz in Hobart and the Margaret River region of Western Australia; and TPG Telecom bought a total of 400Mhz of spectrum in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, and a combined 600MHz in every other mainland capital.

Cornish is suitably vague when describing the game of cat and mouse that played out during the sale, as he is bound by confidential agreements.

But he says it basically boiled down to a system of supply and demand, where the country is broken down into regions that the bidders then move points around inside, to augment the price they pay.
“And the price goes up 10 per cent every hour,” Cornish says.
Even still, he reckons it was comparatively simple.

“Civilization VI is just this massively epic strategy game where it takes four hours-plus to complete a game. The team and I play against each other all the time and you have to be thinking 10 moves ahead, at least,” he says.
“The auction game was much simpler than that.”
Competitive edge in Perth

As for what the new spectrum space means for Pentanet, Cornish says it will allow the company to more effectively compete with its larger rivals in Perth.
“We have the largest scale fixed wireless network in Perth,” he says. “The 26GHz millimetre wave has much further range. We can use that to deploy at a mass scale.”

Pentanet already boasts about 11,000 subscribers, according to its latest ASX disclosure, with 43 towers supporting its core fixed wireless proposition and a total network radius of about 5 kilometres.

The company mostly markets its services to gamers through its partnership with US-based graphics card manufacturer Nvidia, which via Pentanet has expanded cloud gaming platform GeForce Now in Australia.

Cornish says the new spectrum space will help show those outside the gamer demographic that Pentanet has top-level performance.

“We want to attract all users on to our network,” he said. “Say you’ve got the engineers working on F1 cars – if that engine is good enough for the F1 class, it’s good enough for the regular consumer class too.

“What it will all come down to is which operator the consumer wants to be with, and they don’t care if Telstra has 1000Mhz and Pentanet has 200Mhz. If more people are vouching for Pentanet, they’ll probably think: ‘Hey, that is who I’m going to sign up with’.”