Wez

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.