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Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds has stated clearly that enough is enough at a media briefing following yet another outage on its XT Network.
Reynolds openly acknowledged that the company has not kept its promises of a reliable world class service for many customers.
He says the company is focused on restoring the faith of customers south of Taupo who have been impacted by the outages.
"One outage is too much, several are intolerable," says Reynolds.
He says there is no hiding from the fact that the XT service has not delivered so far. Reynolds says the four outages have quite different features but two involved failed operational processes and all involved the Christchurch network.
Actions have to speak louder than words, Reynolds says and he accepts that it is no longer enough to simply say sorry. He has outlined what he describes as significant changes to the operational team and he says Telecom's XT network partner Alcatel-Lucent has been put on notice.
Telecom is taking urgent action on a range of fronts both internally and with its network partner, Reynolds says, including having Telecom people immediately take a stronger role in the day to day management of the XT network.
He described this as "putting own house in order".
The company has acknowledged the impact the outages have had on businesses and has offered a range of compensation for those prepared to stick with the network.
Reynolds says it is important to reward their patience and loyalty.
"For too many of our customers, we have not lived up to the promises we made about XT when the network was launched," Reynolds says.
"Alcatel Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen has committed to providing the full global resources of his company to get these issues fixed," says Reynolds.
Operational management
"CIO David Havercroft will assume the responsibility for all network and IT operations from today, and CFO Russ Houlden will carry interim responsibility for our Shared Services operations and Technology Strategy," says Reynolds.
"With these measures in place, and with the offers we have made to customers affected by the outages, Telecom is now working day and night to restore customers' faith in XT."
Financial guidance statement for markets
For the year ended 30 June 2010, Telecom now expects Adjusted
Group EBITDA to be near the lower end of the -1% to +2% range
reflecting continued impacts of the economic downturn and XT mobile
outages, and Adjusted Group Net Earnings to be near the lower end
of the NZ$400m to NZ$440m range subject to changes in tax
legislation.
Multiple problems
In the latest breakdown, users from Taupo south started to experience significant network interruptions on Monday afternoon. Customers complained of problems accessing voicemail, delayed text messages, and being unable to call other XT phones.
Telecom initially denied there was a problem before updating its
website with notification of the system disruption at 5.50pm. The
company announced around midnight that services had been restored
to most of the affected cell sites.
Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (Tuanz) chief
executive Ernie Newman says the XT Network is out of control and is
damaging the country's infrastructure.
"It's dislocating New Zealand business and dislocating people's lives and families," he said, adding that the patience of Tuanz members had "well and truly run out".
Newman says the company needs to be called to account after the fourth major outage since the network was launched with much fanfare last year.
On Monday Telecom's XT network partner, Alcatel-Lucent, announced that its New Zealand chief executive Steve Lowe was leaving the company and would be replaced by Jyoti Mahurkar-Thombre, effective from March 8.
And Telecom's Chief Transformation Officer, Frank Mount, has
resigned, effective immediately.
What do you think about Telecom's public statement about
the XT network? Have your say on the messageboard
below.
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Add a Comment:
Post new commentemail55 said on 2011-02-03 @ 13:04 NZDT: Report abusive post
I could not access urgent client files to meet deadline with client - recently with Telecom outage. I turned my PC on at 8 a.m. to access files and could not access until late into the afternoon. I don't expect Telecom to fork out for every little 'outage', but at what point is it deemed signficant enough for them to compensate? As it is, I rang them recently and they said, "A credit will be applied to your account". Two weeks later they told me they weren't??
technoman said on 2010-02-25 @ 14:19 NZDT: Report abusive post
people seem to blame every hiccup they have on 'the issue'. I suppose it is only natural but common now!
sh0na said on 2010-02-24 @ 11:31 NZDT: Report abusive post
Still more problems with network today. Down again at the moment............When are they going to fix it for once and for all??????????????
jclan said on 2010-02-24 @ 09:42 NZDT: Report abusive post
i rang telecom today to disccuss the sistuation with there tx service and was told "that the only comenstratin that i would get is what is on there website" they dont care what has happened they dont care about their customers its either there way or nothing
jacquinz1 said on 2010-02-23 @ 21:23 NZDT: Report abusive post
After saying I wanted a refund on three XT phones from our household and plans cancelled, I was told I could go into a Telecome shop and they would supply loan CDMA phones free of charge and swap plans and numbers over until XT becomes more stable. I would suggest everyone does this.