Is this the end for Royal Mail ?

Posted: October 29, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Business, Do something Now is good, Government, Interesting, Internet, Northern Ireland, politics, Social Networking, Telecoms | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

simoncowlousyonroyalmailRoyal Mail has undergone a fair amount of changes since its governmental birth in 1516.  One of the biggest was in 1635 when it became available to the public, for the first time a person – any person could write a letter and send it to someone at the other end of the country without actually taking there themselves.

To say things are different now though is a massive understatement, even in the last 20 years peer to peer communications have changed so much from what we once thought possible.  Email is nearly a things of the past for goodness sake but that a different article for a different day!.

Things have changed and things keep changing but one thing that will never change is that when people rely on something and it is taken away, people will find another way to move forward.  Once shifted it is hard to get them back.

For those of you that do not know the story of Richard Bransons first main break in life – here is a snap shot.  Branson ran a small student magazine whilst at college, sadly or maybe for the best for him it didn’t really make any money so to try and keep his head above water he began to sell records through the magazine by mail order until one day orders stopped coming in, why ?  Well there was a postal strike of course !  Stuck with a stack of records and no means of getting orders Branson opened his first store and Virgin Megastore was born.

So why am I talking about this now ?  Well yet again we are faced with a postal strike and yet again people are finding ways of carrying on without the need for our famous posties.

Never before has the postal service had so much competition.  Send a letter? why I’ll email you.  Post a contract? I’ll just have a bike collect it and have it to you within the hour !  Send a package ? I can fedex it to Liverpool overnight for half the price of Parcelforce.

The main thing right now that is getting held up in the post is cheques, unlike people, small business still heavily relies on cheques to settle payments as credit card facilities cost a fortune however with threats that cheques will be removed from the banking system by 2016 its time to look for another way.  Today for the first time (and I know its been around for years) I did an online transfer to settle my accountants bill, straight from my account to his in a matter of minutes.  Result.

Whats the next big use of the postal service ?  You guessed it, Christmas cards………….. could this be the year people jack the cards in and go the e-card route ?  who knows, are you going to risk that person not getting a Christmas message at all ?  No you will probably pick up the phone which lets be honest is better than a card anyway.

Is this the end for Royal Mail ?  Well no, we will always need some form of postal service but in terms of how it exists today…….. Yes the business is dead – time to get back to work, re group, re write the business plan and create a new age postal service we can all be proud off but before its to late and before there is nothing to strike over.

It’s just a thought

Russell

Northern Ireland's mobile phone network is the worst in the UK

Posted: October 6, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Belfast, Business, Interesting, Internet, iPhone, Mobile, Social Networking, Telecoms | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

On my monthly drive to Enniskillen yesterday I was plaiged with the usual problems, no data service on my 02 iPhone and no service at all on my T-Mobile Blackberry.  It was not until I got into Enniskillen itself that my phones locked onto the network and pulled down my data.

At home I have to go to the garden to make a call and I can forget about getting in touch with my friends who are on Orange when they are in Lisburn.

In shocking new figures printed today in the Belfast Telegraph today it has become apparent that the problem is worse than it seems with 59% of Northern Ireland’s mobile phone users reporting problems with signal on their phone, making our networks the worst in the UK.

The problem as I see it comes down to cold hard cash, with only 1.6 million people living in Northern Ireland it doesn’t make commercial sense to provide a full coverage, however with 02 retaining a 65% market share you would think they at least would be up to the job although anyone with an iPhone will know that the 3G functions on the handset are pretty much useless when you are out of Belfast.

Historically Vodafone always had the best coverage in Northern Ireland as the local infrasture and backhaul were owned by Vodac Ulster, powered by Bramwell who set up the network in Northern Ireland but this was sold in around 2000 / 2002 to Vodafone UK and the local network became part of a national strategy meaning the mast would not only be used by Vodafone customers but BT Cellnet (now o2) customers as well as part of a network sharing move.

The old school planning of rolling out a mobile phone network no longer applies, as the old school network roll out provisioned only for Voice and Text.  As data came into play the networks simply upgraded the cell sites with out taking into consideration the fact that these cell sites would now house more traffic as people crave data on the move.

Looking at the coverage maps, it is hard to see today who has the best voice and data signal in the provence and most people subscribe to the network that gives them the best signal in their area – not much use for me who travels all over Northern and Southern Ireland every day.

Whats the answer ?

Commercially as I said.  It does not make sense for all 5 mobile networks to roll out a fantastic network in NI, however it does make sense for one network to roll out a network with more capacity than they need and share the mast.

We will have to see how the proposed T-Mobile UK and Orange UK merger will improve things but I would not hold my breath !