Jelly for brains
As some of you may know, I work for Telecom. I like Telecom. Yes, I know, am I nuts, blah blah blah. But it's not such a bad place. People tend to harass it and say it's a bloated monolith intent on disrupting all telecommunications in NZ. Which obvioulsy is nonsensical and counter productive.
The way I see it, Telecom has struggled for years to operate in an environment that enforces it to try and strike a balance between providing a "cheap" service to the public whilst giving access to it's networks so that it's competitors can use the infrastructure Telecom owns to take business off Telecom. Some of the stories that have floated around are crazy, and some to the restrictions that Telecom has to operate under are downright uncompetitive. For example, did you know that Telecom can not offer a price that is lower than a competitor offer without a significant compelling event? Sure it can match it, but you can't blame Telecom for keeping prices artificially high. And did you know that it was the Government which forced Telecom to take on CDMA technology for it's mobile network when it actually wanted to go with the more popular GSM technology which Vodafone use's? If it had been able to, you would have seen the two biggest mobile carriers in NZ using the same technology and thus providing for a much easier and level playing feild. No doubt also ensuring that consumers would have got the best technology.
That's fine. We are not complaining. But you have to expect a certain amount of patch protection. You have to expect that Telecom is going to try and obstruct access as much as it can in order for it continue to make money and remain a strong company.
The problems I have with though is that it seems to have been so worried about protecting it's patch that it has utterly failed to deliver a true world class service which it so easily could have done. The service I refer to is broadband. We/You/I have to admit that it's pretty pathetic. And in order for Telecom to do anything about it, the Government had to wade in, albeit late, and tell Telecom that enough is enough. The time has come for the "local loop" to be unbundled and for Telecom to allow it's competitors unfettered access to it's network.
As I have talked about previously, TG has said that Telecom will not get in the way. It will be an obstacle no more. Good stuff, I say. I just hope they stick to it, otherwise it will be a PR disaster. Already things have been somewhat muddled on the PR front, which no doubt has something to do with the fact that Telecom was blindsided by the announcement from the Government. Still, whoever's in charge of PR should be fired. A blind deaf mute would have seen the writing on the wall. It was not and "if" but a "when". And if nobody had a plan on what to do, then that was just plain stupid.
I don't circulate in the upper echelons of Telecom by any stretch of the imagination. But I get the feeling that things are pretty much business as usual. Which is a bit of a concern. Sure they have announced a restructure, and I guess they have to weigh up the options given the Govt have not actually announced any hard plans. But it would be nice to think that someone was going "Right. It's all changed. What can we do before Helen sticks her beak in again and screws it up even more?"
Personally, I would be running around to each box in the country and upgrading it. So that when the otehr ISP's finally do get access (1) there won't be any room for thier crap and (2) Telecom will have the fastest network anyway so don't waste your time. Spending some of those hundreds of millions they have been creaming for so long.
But that brings us back to the beginning a bit. You see instead of investing or banking the cash, they gave it back to the shareholders. Which is nice for them, but not so great now.
So where does that leave us? In a bit of a mess really.
Telecom looks very likely to follow a BT route in that it will seperate it's wholesale and consumer divisions into two distinct entities. But that is still at least 12 months off, if not 24 months or longer.
Vodafone has just been given access to Telecom's landline business. Which means there will be a definite push by Vodafone into not only the broadband market but also the general consumer market. It will be interesting to see what happens.
And I will try and offer a few insights from inside as well.
The way I see it, Telecom has struggled for years to operate in an environment that enforces it to try and strike a balance between providing a "cheap" service to the public whilst giving access to it's networks so that it's competitors can use the infrastructure Telecom owns to take business off Telecom. Some of the stories that have floated around are crazy, and some to the restrictions that Telecom has to operate under are downright uncompetitive. For example, did you know that Telecom can not offer a price that is lower than a competitor offer without a significant compelling event? Sure it can match it, but you can't blame Telecom for keeping prices artificially high. And did you know that it was the Government which forced Telecom to take on CDMA technology for it's mobile network when it actually wanted to go with the more popular GSM technology which Vodafone use's? If it had been able to, you would have seen the two biggest mobile carriers in NZ using the same technology and thus providing for a much easier and level playing feild. No doubt also ensuring that consumers would have got the best technology.
That's fine. We are not complaining. But you have to expect a certain amount of patch protection. You have to expect that Telecom is going to try and obstruct access as much as it can in order for it continue to make money and remain a strong company.
The problems I have with though is that it seems to have been so worried about protecting it's patch that it has utterly failed to deliver a true world class service which it so easily could have done. The service I refer to is broadband. We/You/I have to admit that it's pretty pathetic. And in order for Telecom to do anything about it, the Government had to wade in, albeit late, and tell Telecom that enough is enough. The time has come for the "local loop" to be unbundled and for Telecom to allow it's competitors unfettered access to it's network.
As I have talked about previously, TG has said that Telecom will not get in the way. It will be an obstacle no more. Good stuff, I say. I just hope they stick to it, otherwise it will be a PR disaster. Already things have been somewhat muddled on the PR front, which no doubt has something to do with the fact that Telecom was blindsided by the announcement from the Government. Still, whoever's in charge of PR should be fired. A blind deaf mute would have seen the writing on the wall. It was not and "if" but a "when". And if nobody had a plan on what to do, then that was just plain stupid.
I don't circulate in the upper echelons of Telecom by any stretch of the imagination. But I get the feeling that things are pretty much business as usual. Which is a bit of a concern. Sure they have announced a restructure, and I guess they have to weigh up the options given the Govt have not actually announced any hard plans. But it would be nice to think that someone was going "Right. It's all changed. What can we do before Helen sticks her beak in again and screws it up even more?"
Personally, I would be running around to each box in the country and upgrading it. So that when the otehr ISP's finally do get access (1) there won't be any room for thier crap and (2) Telecom will have the fastest network anyway so don't waste your time. Spending some of those hundreds of millions they have been creaming for so long.
But that brings us back to the beginning a bit. You see instead of investing or banking the cash, they gave it back to the shareholders. Which is nice for them, but not so great now.
So where does that leave us? In a bit of a mess really.
Telecom looks very likely to follow a BT route in that it will seperate it's wholesale and consumer divisions into two distinct entities. But that is still at least 12 months off, if not 24 months or longer.
Vodafone has just been given access to Telecom's landline business. Which means there will be a definite push by Vodafone into not only the broadband market but also the general consumer market. It will be interesting to see what happens.
And I will try and offer a few insights from inside as well.
posted by DaveNZ at 1:38 pm
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