Telecom apologises and offers credits

BY JENNY KEOWN

Sorry is not good enough, but Telecom is hoping credits to customers affected by the XT outages will be.

However, customers will have to stick with the troubled network to get them.

Telecom head Paul Reynolds has announced the credits at a press conference underway in Auckland. Customers living from Taupo south, and on XT accounts, will save 33 percent of their monthly plan costs, for three months. Pre-paid customers will get a 33 percent bonus when they top up.

Affected business clients will be offered a credit which Telecom says amounts to 50 percent of their monthly plan charges, also over the next three months.

The compensation will cost Telecom $10 million. Telecom concedes it will engage with customers who want to break their contracts because of poor services.

The XT network has been plagued with problems since being introduced late last year, and an outage yesterday affecting customers south of Taupo was the fourth time since Christmas that customers around the country had been unable to effectively use their phones.

Telecom XT partner Alcatel-Lucent chief executive Ben Verwaayen has "committed to providing the full global resources of his company to get these issues fixed". Alcatel-Lucent built the XT network.

Asked if Telecom would seek compensation from Alcatel-Lucent, Dr Reynolds said the company was focusing on getting the XT problems fixed.

Dr Reynolds - who, like other Aucklanders, has avoided the XT problems - said he knew what had caused the outages in the lower North and South islands, but still needed further information: "I feel very let down by Alcatel-Lucent".

He would not say how many of the 450,000 XT customers had been affected by the outages. However, 220,000 customers had been hit in the latest outage, and "sorry is not good enough anymore". 

Dr Reynolds believed there had been sufficient testing on the XT network before it was rolled out, and said the launch had been delayed by two or three months.

Communications Minister Steven Joyce had been phoned by Dr Reynolds last night to talk about the XT network. Mr Joyce apparently expressed sympathy for the difficult position Telecom was in and "we left it at that".

Telecom is only aware of one 111 which did not get through due to the latest XT outage.

HEADS ROLL 

Heads have already rolled as Telecom's XT woes continue - it has lost the man responsible for driving technology upgrades.

Dr Reynolds today announced that chief transformation officer Frank Mount had resigned. Dr Reynolds accepted the resignation this morning, effective immediately.

"In the interests of our customers, our team and New Zealand, I have regretfully accepted Frank's resignation," he said.

Mr Mount's job was to drive "the company's transformation for long-term growth and delivering Telecom's new generation of world-class services to our customers in new and innovative ways" according to the company's PR.

From the USA he worked for AT&T for 20 years, along with a range of mobile and internet specialists. He was handpicked by Dr Reynolds for the job.

"I want to acknowledge with personal gratitude Frank Mount's enormous contribution to Telecom over the past 18 months," Dr Reynolds said.

"He has worked tirelessly and selflessly for our customers and for Telecom people. The successful delivery of Telecom's Crown Undertakings Schedule on Operational Separation represents one of the most significant operational and IT programmes in the company's history and is re-shaping the industry.

"I wish Frank well for the future."

The job has immediately been taken over by chief information officer David Havercroft, who will look after all network and IT operations from today while chief financial officer Russ Houlden will "carry interim responsibility for our Shared Services operations and Technology Strategy."

OUTAGE

Calls to emergency services to help a student who was attacked at a Christchurch mall yesterday failed due to the latest Telecom XT network outage.

Witnesses said an Asian student was left beaten and bloodied after the assault by four skinhead youths at a bus stop outside the Palms Mall in Shirley about 6.30pm yesterday.

The attack coincided with the latest XT outage, which held up attempts to call emergency services to help the student. Witnesses believe the attack was racially motivated.  

Communications Minister Steven Joyce told reporters this morning that he had not been told about the incident but he had sought reassurance about the 111 service yesterday when he spoke to Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds yesterday.

"I am concerned and that is why I asked last night without any knowledge of that situation if Telecom could provide assurances that people could call 111 from their XT phones... Officials are following that up today and will seek further assurances."

He said Telecom should be able to guarantee the 111 service worked "as much as technically possible, yes."

GOVERNMENT POWERLESS TO INTERVENE

The Government says it has little ability to intervene over the XT network problems but has made it clear to the company how concerning the issues are becoming.

Labour's communications and IT spokeswoman Clare Curran said today Mr Joyce needed to get answers from Telecom about why customers were being let down and urge the company to compensate them.

Ms Curran said the unreliability of the XT network was now an infrastructure issue which was costing New Zealanders time, businesses money, and Telecom a big chunk of its reputation.

"New Zealand cannot afford to have the main network of the major telecommunications company under question. It's not good enough and it would be good if the minister would relay that to Telecom on behalf of customers."

Mr Joyce said he spoke to Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds about the problems yesterday, but because the company was a private one the Government had no power to act or intervene.

"But I've made it clear to Dr Reynolds that the Government is very concerned with the recent spate of outages," Mr Joyce said.

"I am also seeking assurances from the company that arrangements will be urgently made to ensure that emergency 111 calls are answered.

"New Zealand's telecommunications market is a competitive one and I'm sure Telecom is well aware of the effect these ongoing issues will be having on their customers' confidence."

Telecom compensated customers following an outage late last month which lasted for days, and Dr Reynolds is this afternoon due to front up to the public to talk about the issues.

Alcatel-Lucent, the partner of Telecom which built the XT network, announced yesterday that its New Zealand chief executive, Steve Lowe, had resigned. No reason was given for the resignation.

NETWORK 'OUT OF CONTROL'

Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (Tuanz) chief executive Ernie Newman said today the XT network was out of control and was damaging the country's infrastructure.

"The problem here is it's dislocating New Zealand business and dislocating people's lives and families," he told Radio New Zealand.

He said the patience of Tuanz members had "well and truly run out" and the company needed to be called to account.

ANGRY CUSTOMERS

Queenstown woman Catherine Dawson, 31, said she had experienced the worst of the problems when the network was down for three days, south of Timaru, in January.

Her calls had repeatedly been dropped and she had often had problems sending and receiving text messages.

While there were always potential issues with new technology, she felt the network rollout had been rushed and more testing should have been done or a back up system put in place.

Ms Dawson was not impressed with the resignation of Alcatel-Lucent New Zealand chief executive Steve Lowe.

"Fix the problem mate, don't bail out," she said.

Making her mood worse was the fact that she had been warned about the network by her dad - a network engineer with State-owned telecommunications company Kordia.

"He was like 'don't do it' and I was like, 'oh, it'll be fine'."

"I think he knew it was a bit ambitious what they were trying to do."

Ms Dawson said she'd give the service another couple of weeks before she looked at changing networks.

Sarah Cullen, 17, said she would "definitely" follow her mum and change networks if she wasn't contracted to Telecom.

"Honestly, it's painful. It's just not being able to actually contact people. It's just really inconvenient - it is, it's terrible.

"I tried to organise to meet with someone and that didn't work because the text didn't go thorough until four hours later.

"And when it did they were confused because they didn't know what was going on."

Amie Hickland, 18, said she had been trying to organise a place to live during the first major outage, in December.

"So that was a pain because we couldn't get hold of anyone," she said.

However, she planned to stick with XT as her father worked for Telecom, she said.

Caffe L'Affare marketing manager Jessica Godfrey said the continuing problems had a serious impact on business. Outages left them unable to contact customers.

"You can't have customers thinking you're not responsive to their needs."

Ms Godfrey said the company feared that the outages would cost them customers.

- with NZPA, The Press and The Dominion Post

- © Fairfax NZ News