Influence of the Overseas Chinese in Telco - Philippines

For many that doesn't know, there's great influence in Southeast Asia from the overseas chinese. Generally overseas chinese refers to those immigrants from China who settle in their respective adoptive countries. This happened a few decades ago when they try to escape poverty and war when China was in turmoil. Many has gone to Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, etc. Thus their wealth grew over the years and it led to them dominating many of the economies in Southeast Asia. 

That influence extended to the Telecommunication industry. Just take PLDT for example. PLDT is majority owned by First Pacific. Who is First Pacific? This belongs to Anthony Salim. Anthony Salim is the son and heir of the indonesian tycoon Liem Sioe Liong (aka Sudono Salim) business empire. Liem Sioe Liong was a close friend of Suharto and at his peak owns BCA bank, Indocement and Indofood and many others. After the asian financial crisis, they had little choice but to sell BCA.

Globe Telecom on the other hand is also owned by the Chinese. It is majority owned by the Ayala family. You may be more familiar with the Ayala Greenbelt shopping malls. 

Same story for Bayan Telecom. It is majority owned by the Lopez family. Another powerful chinese family in the philippines. It has since been sold to Globe and rumors is circulating that there'll be massive retrenchments happening as soon as mar. The Lopez family also owns the media company ABS-CBN that owns Sky cable. Well, talk about power and influence, here's all the top few telecommunications companies in Philippines for you and all owned by the local chinese. 

Verizon Layoffs in Asia

Grapevine has it that Verizon has quietly let go quite a significant number of staffs in Asia including those in the network team.  There was already some changes last year that claimed its first casualty, the once mighty and much feared Ms Yali Liu.  Good for her she has now found a job as VP for ChinaCache.

Testra Buys Pacnet

It is something that the industry has known for years. Pacnet has been desperately seeking buyers as the private equity wants to bail out. They didn't get the $1 billion (asking price from Bill Barney then was $2 billion) they were looking for but got only $697 million (comes with $400 million debt). Finally the private equity can get out. Telstra is now full of cash. Not only did they get $2.8 billion from the sale of CSL New World Mobility to PCCW, they also has $11 billion from selling their fixed network to the NBN co in Australia. Best part of this sale is that NBN gets a old copper and hydrid network. The joke is going around that  the government had repurchased the "old, out of date copper network" that former Prime Minister John Howard sold last century. Winner is surely Telstra and the loser unfortunately are the Australians tax payers.

Now back to the Pacnet sale. How well will this acquisition go is unsure but one thing for sure is the layoff exercise that will come in the months ahead. Pacnet and Telstra has some of the most number of people working in the internationally especially in Asia. Telstra is heavily overstaffed and unfortunately for Pacnet, it has always been the victor that writes the history.

Dating in the same industry?

It's always a little tricky to date someone in the same industry especially when the relationship sours. Then it becomes kinda awkward. It happened again recently in telco industry which left the lady devastated and contemplating suicide. She was dumped mercilessly, rumor has it that it was done via sms. Months ago they were talking about marriage and setting down in UK. Lady is a hong kong chinese and the guy is a British caucasian. Some chinese girls has a thing for Caucasian. Well girls, just opened up your eyes as some of them are just going for a fling while promising you the world to get 'what' they want. The late paramount leader of China Deng Xiao Peng sums it up best when he says, 'regardless of white cat or black cat, a cat that catches mouse is a good cat'. So it doesn't matter whether the guy is white, yellow or black. Just have to learn to look beyond the color.

GTT fires ex-Tinet's NOC

The NOC that help bring Tinet's netwk from tier 2/3 to tier 1 has been shut down. Here's some very sad comments from its ex-employees. I think they must have taken the importance of the NOC with IP skill set too lightly. Will it be a decision that will bring impact to its customers with such drastic action? Customer experience seem to be the lowest priority in GTT management's mind. It is going down the path of cogent to be market leader in price with quality a low focus. GTT seems to be trigger happy when it comes to firing people especially ex-tinet staffs.

Global Cloud Xchange - PacNet alumni?

Reliance Globalcom has being reborn as Global Cloud Xchange. It could finally be becoming a more competitive and international outfit after many years in the wilderness. What's interesting is the senior management are all ex-pacnet's guys. People like Bill Barney who rise like a phoenix to become once again the CEO of GCX, Wifred Kwan as CTO and Ivy Chan and CMO.

Network Readiness Index

Here's the list of the top 10 countries that use infocomm technology to improve economic productivity and social development. Not surprisingly the Scandinavian countries are among the top again except Denmark (#13). What's surprising is that an Asian country is top 2 and that's Singapore.