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Telecom is on notice that there will be no third chance after its second major outage with its new XT network.
Ernie Newman from the Telecommunications Users Association says while customers will be looking for some form of compensation, the urgent need is for Telecom to show it has sorted the problem out and that there will be no repeat.
Newman told TVNZ's Breakfast programme that XT is not a dud and is a leading edge, world class network. He says there is no question of its basic solidarity but there are real questions over whether Telecom is on top of the technology.
And he says there is a big questionmark over whether Telecom has learned "how to drive this thing".
Short outages on cellular networks are to be expected and are part and parcel of technology, says Newman, adding that most of the time users don't notice. But he says two breakdowns of such magnitude that go on for hours and hours are not normal, and twice in a few weeks is "obviously totally unacceptable".
"They've got a major problem somewhere," says Newman.
The telecommunications expert believes Telecom's review will be thorough but he says it will be interesting to see how much the company will reveal. Newman says business customers are technically literate and want to know if they can have confidence going forward.
Newman says platitudes and generalised assurances are not enough and he questions whether Telecom will "lift the bonnet and show the public what went wrong so people can make own judgement about the reliability of the network".
He says there are huge social and economic costs when something like this happens, from children being left waiting for a ride home from school to tradespeople unable to get hold of customers.
"There is a tremendous amount of business dislocation from this sort of thing," says Newman.
He says the issue of compensation is a dilemma and the reality is you can't offer real compensation for consequential outcomes of people being unable to use their phone.
