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Source: ONE News -
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Thousands of Telecom XT customers in the lower South Island remain cut off from the mobile network.
Several cell sites in Dunedin, Invercargill, Timaru and Queenstown are not operating and XT users in other areas south of Taupo are experiencing intermittent service issues, according to Telecom's latest statement.
There has been widespread frustration over the outage.
Timaru doctor Tracy Chandler has been experiencing problems while she is on call.
"Potentially, patients' lives would be at risk. I know particularly the elderly folk, if they do call you they have done it as a last resort," she says.
She is responsible for 5,000 patients and has already missed one emergency.
"I know of at least one patient who has tried to contact us on our cellphone."
The service is also "patchy" in the North Island, according to other customers.
Sales representative Annette Cater only signed up to a Telecom XT contract last week, a move she now says she regrets.
"I commute from Hawke's Bay to Wellington and (my mobile phone) keeps my day going."
Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds says the company will look at the compensation issue once the problem is fixed.
"I apologise to our customers who have been inconvenienced, but also recognise that words are not enough. That's why we are taking rapid action," he says.
"I have commissioned an urgent and independent review to ensure we have taken all reasonable steps to assure customer experience.
"Our focus right now is on fixing things. We will of course look closely at claims for compensation once things are fixed," Reynolds says.
The prime minister says if Telecom continues to offer substandard service to people with network outages, it will lose customers.
John Key says ultimately it is up to the company about whether or not to compensate customers, but other firms facing similar issues have chosen to compensate their customers.
Key says Telecom is a big company and it needs to think about how to hold on to customers and not to lose them to competitors.
WATCH Simon Dallow's full interview with Paul Reynolds.
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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.