Public response to Telecom problems unreasonable

I posted this on Facebook because a few friends were making some pretty unreasonable comments about Telecom’s current problems and issues. I decided to post it here on the blog as well because I see a lot of people making similar comments about Telecom on Twitter and Google Buzz as well.

For the record, I am not a TelecomNZ customer nor do I have any professional relation with any company within Telecom. In the late 1990s and early 2000s I was a very vocal opponent of their business practices regarding the network infrastructure and the cost to access it if you were a customer of any other phone company, or trying to get wholesale access to it. But the amazing venom I have seen in recent weeks is simply unfathomable and makes no sense at all.

Yes, they screwed up. Yes, they’re having problems at the moment. But they have done something they would never have done even 3 years ago. They have fronted up and they have accepted responsibility and apologised for it. They have offered all affected customers compensation and they are holding the network vendor to account. They are doing everything they can to get things up to scratch and ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future.

There is no excuse for people spitting on Telecom staff. There is no excuse for people causing problems in the retail stores. There is no excuse for verbal or physical abuse against Telecom representatives. Its not their fault. They didn’t deliberately cause the networks to start having problems.

Telecom relies on their own network as much as their customers do. Why would they want the grief and problems themselves?

The emotional response of the public has been unbelievable. I have seen calls for Telecom to go bankrupt and for all their staff to be put out of work. I have seen people abusing Telecom staff that use social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Friends that work for Telecom have been assaulted by customers. And the press has almost been a ring leader for the verbiage against Telecom with some pretty unfair commentary.

XT is a massive undertaking on Telecom’s part. It has been faster and far wider reaching than when they rolled out their CDMA network. The uptake by customers to the new network has also been faster than the CDMA network uptake originally was. Regardless of how much they did or didn’t spend on the network initially I don’t think anyone could have planned for, or expected their customers to switch in such significant numbers so quickly.

Not many people remember that even Vodafone had problems with their 3G UMTS network. The main difference is Vodafone still has their old 2G GSM network underneath that most phones can resort back to and so it wasn’t noticed as widely. Telecom is switching from a completely different technology and has no such luxury.

People need to accept that phone networks are very complex and complicated machines. The computers and switches that run them are not infallible and no matter what you think, sometimes things crash or break or do the unexpected. How many times has your own computer crashed unexpectedly? How many times has your work computer done something unexpected thats required you contact the IT professionals? Now consider how much more complex a machine dealing with hundreds of thousands of users must be.

Telecom is doing everything they can to resolve the issues. I believe it is completely unreasonable for people to get so heated about the subject. You have every right to be annoyed, but at some point people have to stop complaining and actually listen to what Telecom is saying. They have apologised. They are offering affected customers compensation. They have made sure Alcatel-Lucent are bring in the most senior network engineers they can to get to the bottom of the problems as quickly as possible. Heads have rolled, including some very high up the ladder in both Telecom and Alcatel-Lucent. Telecom are not taking this lightly.

So please, would everyone just settle down and stop over reacting? In all the years you’ve been a Telecom customer, do you really want to throw away that entire relationship over a few hiccups that are beyond anyones control at this point? Let them get this sorted out.

mike

i think its not just this tho. telecom hav been screwing over nzers forever whether its the price of their phones to the insane internet prices. vodafone do the same but atlast you get the coverage. if u compare it to the uk. same has hapned, british telecom is useless aswell. they were reaping the benefits of no competition for so long. now thrs competition why should peopl put up with it? i dont agree with what has hapened to th staff. no one should go through that but its telecoms own doing.

http://www.google.com/profiles/113064402350615967581 kinthiri

I think you're wrong in your assessment, Mike. Telecom has not had a monopoly on the mobile market since Vodafone bought out BellSouth in 1998. At the time, the Commerce Commission forced them to sell to Vodafone the cellular bands they had been leasing to BellSouth up to that point. Since then, it has been a very significant downhill slide for Telecom in the mobile market.

Its interesting you bring up BT in the UK. Mr Reynolds thats now at the head of Telecom was previously in charge of BT during the period when BT was forced to unbundle the local loop and allow wholesale access to the land lines. BT had much the same reputation that Telecom has here and have successfully managed to turn around their reputation, much as Telecom has been doing for nearly 3 years here.

However, like Telecom, BT never had an exclusive monopoly in the mobile market. In fact, other big telcos like Virgin, Orange, 3 and so on had been doing very well in the mobile market and BT was never the dominant player. Much as Telecom has not been dominant since BellSouth sold out to Vodafone.

People have this massive anger against Telecom for past misdeeds performed during a phase when they were the incumbent in the land lines. However, that is no longer the case either. Telecom are now forced by law to offer wholesale prices to their competitors at essentially the same rates as they sell to their Retail company. That is why there was a very significant separation of the company into multiple divisions that are each run as independent companies. They have paid the price for their behaviour during the 1990s and early 2000's.

As for cost of internet. Yes, I agree, we still pay significantly high prices here. But that is not Telecom's fault alone anymore. Orcon, Vodafone and Telstra could all significantly drop their prices with very little hurt to their bottom line. However, all the companies maintain the status quo because its very good for their bottom line. What incentive does Telecom have to do so when the others aren't going to either? A good example is Telstra Saturn on the Kapiti Coast.

Telecom has every right to profit from their business. They are a publicly traded company in which anyone can buy shares. Their first priority, as with any and every business, is to their investors and stock holders. If a customer doesn't like the way they do business today, the customer has lots of choices and can easily take their business elsewhere in today's market.

But to take your attitude and complain that because they've done bad things in the past, they should suffer indefinitely, and people should take delight in their woe, is just wrong. They have spent the past 3 years trying to make up for the mistakes that were made when Theresa Gattung was head of the company. And as someone who used to be a very vocal critic of the company, I personally think they have made amazing strides.

As for your comment about coverage… Vodafone definitely does not have a better coverage than Telecom. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Take a drive down the west coast of the South Island or the lower east coast of the North Island and you'll see what I mean. Vodafone might have better coverage in the larger urban areas where the majority of people are (although I think thats mostly subjective, I'd call them about even now days) but Telecom has a much bigger rural coverage than Vodafone. Telecom has also historically had a much more stable network.

Vodafone suffers outages as well. The primary difference is they have a GSM network to fall back on when the UMTS network goes offline. And because the majority of UMTS devices are also backwards compatible with GMS networks, its seamless to pretty much everyone except the mobile data users. Telecom don't have that option. So when there is a glitch in their UMTS network, everyone notices it.

Sorry dude, but your arguments just do not wash. They're emotive and based on past transgressions. You're essentially hanging Telecom for deeds they've already paid a huge price over. Thats not fair, by any stretch of the imagination.

Nikki

Reaping benefits of no Competition?? Sorry?!?!? Voda have been the market leader in mobile share for almost the last 10 years??? How is that having “no competition?” It isn't about price? It's about the fact that people are emotionally looking at the issues instead of accepting what has happened and accepting that people are actually trying to fix it instead of lying and bullshitting as the previous management have and moving on. Hell most people this has affected aren't as angry as people who haven't been affected by the outages at all? How does that even make sense?? Please someone tell me because to be honest unless you LIVE in the South Island and use an XT phone or it severely impacted you because you just HAD to contact someone who had no internet or landline and only an XT phone in the South Island (or Taupo South to be specific ) – it's really not even something worth commenting on is it?

Public response to Telecom problems unreasonable

Related Posts

Recent Posts

Meta