Week in Review: The words they use

By Karamjit Singh February 26, 2016

MVNO Tune Talk claims to have a breakthrough MiFi service
Indonesia’s e-commerce pioneer won’t take foreign investors

Week in Review: The words they use WE are used to startups embellishing their stories when speaking to the media or when pushing out their press releases.

But what about when it is an established company with a solid business and millions of customers?

Is it just creative marketing then? Do you give the company the benefit of the doubt and publish its claims? After all, it makes interesting copy for readers.

With Digital News Asia (DNA), we prefer to hold off on running over-the-top claims and to send our own set of questions to get a better picture.

Fortunately for us, in this particular case of mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Tune Talk, its chief executive officer (CEO) Jason Lo made time from Barcelona to answer some of our questions about his company’s claim of being able to offer ‘8G’ in the third quarter of the year.

While consumers are still trying to experience true 4G, it seems like Tune Talk has gone into hyperspace to come out the other side with an 8G offering.

But as it turns out, describing its service as 8G was just creative marketing by Tune Talk, which is a subsidiary of Tony Fernandes’ Tune Group.

Nobody can accuse any of Fernandes’ companies of lacking creativity, especially when it comes to marketing and branding. And here, Lo says it felt its upcoming mobile WiFi service (or MiFi in industry lingo) was akin to adding two 4G networks together – that is, 4G+4G.

Creative or deceiving?

But what’s more interesting is the technology itself, which apparently can merge the various spectrum of different operators into a single connection. Now, to telco engineers, this means nothing and as such, scepticism will remain high until the service is proven to match Lo’s rhetoric.

The technology to deliver such a breakthrough comes from a Malaysian company called Swag Technologies Sdn Bhd. Incidentally, Swag stands for Super WiFi Anywhere you Go.

Until that launch, slated for the third quarter of the year, Lo and Tune Talk will no doubt be enjoying their time in the sun, bolstered by bullish statements from the Malaysian Minister of Communications and Multimedia Salleh Said Keruak, and industry regulator Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

And do wait for our upcoming interview with the Swag CEO where we hope to get more insight into the actual product itself.

Switching to Indonesia, our article on a pioneer in its e-commerce space, PT Bhinneka Mentari Dimensi (Bhinneka) and its plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2018 caught my attention because of the comment made by its CEO, Hendrik Tio.

Currently looking for another investor prior to its IPO, Hendrik says that the preference is for an Indonesian investor over a foreign one as he prefers to keep the company’s Indonesian identity and grow as a local company.

I wonder how the foreign investors would take to such a statement, especially when they are likely taking only a small stake. And how does having a foreign investor threaten the identity of a local company?

And this also tells me that Bhinneka plans to remain a local e-commerce company. Fortunately for it, its local market is big enough. And that’s good news for e-commerce players in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam which probably already have enough competition.

Have a restful weekend and a productive week after.

Editor’s Picks:

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E-commerce player Bhinneka aims for IPO in 2018

Singapore’s BASH turns one, inks five MoUs

Tune Talk’s 8G technology … wait, what?

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