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Chris Chapel

BRITISH Telecom, which has made big inroads into providing data services to its multinational clients in the Asia Pacific region, intends moving into the far bigger voice market as Asian regimes are liberalised.

  'We are hoping to have voice in Hong Kong within the next six months,' said BT's managing director for Asia Pacific, Steve Burdon.

  Concert, BT's joint-venture project with MCI, delivered data for customers in 43 countries but would soon be launching a programme for voice in Asia Pacific, Mr Burdon said.

  The voice service would be offered under the joint venture's Concert Virtual Network Service (CVNS,) which transmits over variable bandwidth.

  However, regulations will need to be relaxed in Hong Kong and most other Asian countries before BT can move into the voice traffic wholesaling business.

  Around the world, data has been liberalised before voice, with the result that multinationals generally pay far more to transmit voice than they do for data.

  BT is now negotiating to provide CVNS services in six Asian countries but, so far, international resale - where companies buy leased line space from incumbent telecom providers on a wholesale basis and resell it - is only possible in Australia and New Zealand.

  To offer a meaningful voice service, BT would need to be able to handle the traffic to and from closed user groups, mostly big companies.

  But before this could happen, rules would need changing in all Asian countries outside Australasia.

   International resale is being considered in Hong Kong, although its introduction is being resisted by Hongkong Telecom.

  BT has about 100 employees in Hong Kong. Its Hong Kong customers include Hongkong Bank and Holiday Inn, but the traffic is mainly data.

  Negotiations to provide CVNS in Hong Kong are in progress.

  Mr Burdon said BT's revenue from the region would triple this year; the result of increased demand from Asian offices of multinational companies and increased business flowing from the Concert joint venture.

  BT bought a 20 per cent stake in MCI in 1993 and has a 75 per cent stake in Concert, with MCI holding the remainder.

   The joint venture has so far specialised in providing data services such as packet switch and frame relay services, but this has more to do with the pace and scale of liberalisation in the industry than any internal strategy.

   Mr Burdon said the strong growth in the region's telecommunications traffic could not be ignored.

  'Asia Pacific now has about 38 per cent of multinational companies but in 10 years it will have over 50 per cent, so it is a very important region.'   In addition to Hong Kong, BT is interested in developing its business in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, India and China.

  Concert's business is weighted heavily in favour of Asian-based multinational customers, which account for 60 per cent of the joint venture's data transmission business.

  A key part of the Concert strategy is to develop local partners. Mr Burdon said his main task was to seek strategic partners for the joint venture in the Asia Pacific region.

  The huge Telecom 95 conference under way in Geneva was an ideal venue for such discussions, he said.

  BT's first Asian joint venture partner was NIS in Japan, where the first moves towards liberalisation in Asia occurred. The group is still looking for a major Asian partner with the regional knowledge required to fully exploit the opportunities.

  Group director, corporate strategy, Jonathon Rickford said BT was aiming for a 10 per cent share of the Asia Pacific telecommunications market, which the group estimated would be worth a total of GBP6 billion (about HK$73.32 billion) by 1998-99.

  'I have no doubt that in the next three to five years, as a result of key developments, we will have at least one really major ally to cover the region as a whole.' 



BT Poised to tap into Asia