XT failure won't be quickly forgiven

OPINION: Luckily for Telecom, anger is a short-term emotion. The second major failure of its XT mobile network in as many months has inconvenienced and outraged many of its customers.

Most consumers and small businesses will probably forget, if not forgive, the outages in a few months, as they have those of Telecom's competitors, as long as no further problems occur.

But corporate customers are likely to put a black mark against the network until they can be assured that the underlying issues have been addressed.

XT's reliability has so far compared unfavourably with the rock-solid and still well-performing T3G network that XT was designed to supersede.

Chief executive Paul Reynolds' goal of capturing 50 per cent of the mobile market for Telecom is looking as far away as ever.

There are, as yet, too few details about the review Dr Reynolds has ordered into the network outages to know whether it is window-dressing, or whether it could have implications for French contractor Alcatel-Lucent, which built XT.

The network was one of the first WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) 850-megahertz networks Alcatel-Lucent built.

It was constructed quickly, to deadlines that Alcatel-Lucent said at the time were challenging, after it won the contract in the face of fierce competition from a rampant Ericsson.

If the review uncovers design shortcomings, there may be enough blame to share around. It takes two to enter into a contract.

The network failure is one more reason for the industry and regulators to consider a single, shared mobile network when network operators move to 4G technology.

More people would be affected if such a network fell over, but that risk should be more than offset by the fact that the economies of scale of a single network would justify a bigger investment in resiliency.

WILL Apple's iPad rock like the iPod, or sink like other tablet computers to the bottom of Gadget Ocean?

Apple will sell some – no doubt more than it will claim it forecast – but perhaps not many.

Company co-founder Steve Jobs summed it up when he unveiled the device in San Francisco.

"All of us use laptops and smartphones now. The question has arisen lately: is there room for a third category of device in the middle?"

Actually, that question has been kicked around for several years and manufacturers have wasted billions of dollars learning that the answer, at least until now, has been, "No, there isn't".

Companies that have tried to sell similar devices may not have done as good a job as Apple has done in designing the iPad, and have done a far worse job that Apple will do marketing it.

Advances in solid-state memory mean that the iPad does not need a fragile hard-disc drive, and the proliferation of wireless home networks may have changed the equation for tablet computers somewhat.

For customers who already have broadband, it will cost about $150 for a technician to come to their home, supply a WiFi router, and securely set up a wireless network.

But a problem with the tablet category as a whole is that keyboards can be quite useful, and with their large screens and no flip-top lid, tablet computers look quite vulnerable to scratches and breaks in the home environment.

Expect 3G iPads to be marketed in New Zealand by Vodafone.

But there is one glimmer for Telecom – because they support 850MHz rather than 900MHz 3G connections at the low-frequency range, outside the big cities, they are likely to work better on XT.

As one analyst noted, the iPad deserves to be taken seriously because of Apple's "trademark accuracy", but Apple may find it has skewered a small market.

- © Fairfax NZ News