In a surprise move Seven has indicated that the Unwired business model has been superseded by new technology.

It will launch this technology under a new brand and model – ‘VividWireless’ – in Perth, far away from its Unwired services, which will continue to operate in Sydney and Melbourne but which, over time, will also be superseded by Vivid.

But whatever grand new 4G technology you come up with at this point it will still have to compete with existing technologies that are now well-established in Australia and are being marketed by very large companies.

Customers are not interested in the technology that underlies the services they want. They are interested in the actual services – and in the price they have to pay for them. It is important to note that wireless broadband services have been available for more than a decade, but for most of that time they didn’t take off because of the price tag.

This is now changing. More people are using mobile broadband and it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Vivid and Unwired to compete in this highly competitive market against the likes of Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. By labelling its service 4G the company has indicated that it will be in this mobile wireless market that it will be competing.

Even if Vivid were to be successful with a ‘superior’ technology the 3G carriers have the option to upgrade their networks with the LTE technology which would turn them into 4G networks also. In fact that could well be the most interesting development of this whole exercise. If Vivid were able to grab, let’s say 10%+, market share that would force the others to react, which would then generate innovative developments in the West.