Despite the booming demand for bandwidth in Asia, the price will continue to stabilize, says Bill Barney, CEO of regional bandwidth carrier Asia Netcom.
Over the last two years the demand for high capacity bandwidth is accelerating in Asia, driven by the increasing popularity of bandwidth-intensive applications like IPTV, online gaming and business processing outsourcing in Asian countries - India, China, Malaysia and the Philippines. Barney says the trend will continue in Asia for the next five years, but this is not likely to lift the price in the short term.
'We don't see inflation right now,' he says. 'The price has been dropping at an average rate of 5-7% in the past few years, but it's now stabilizing.'
Meanwhile, he says, Asia Netcom will continue to stick with the retail sector, despite the recent acquisition of Pacific Internet by its parent Connect Holdings which will take the regional bandwidth carrier into the access market.
'If we're to merge with Pacific Internet, we have no plan to become a wireless voice service provider,' he says.
He says that currently, retail accounts for almost 70% of the company total revenues, while wholesale contributes 30%.
Moving forward, the company will expand its voice-aggregation service into the enterprise space, especially for customers looking at building WANs and call centers, and strap on those capabilities within the region. Other key areas of growth, he says, are Ethernet (as ISPs and large corporation are increasingly looking for high-speed access), and managed services.
'We will continue to expand into that space, and Pacific Internet brings us a lot of capabilities in SME, the so-called low-end managed service sector,' says Barney.