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.

Don't pay her

I think it was the end of last week when Alan "Bollocks" Bollard came out and told us all we need to stop asking for pay rises if we want the interest rates to come down. Apparently our "greed" for more money is pushing up inflation. Sorry Al, but if I was getting paid what you are getting paid, I wouldn't need to ask for anymore money. You twat.

So then our mate Micheal "billion $ surplus" Cullen stands up and says old Al is right, and we should all be careful with our money, and companies should be careful not to raise pay packets as it will have a detrimental effect on the economy.

Hmmmm. Mike, didn't you just get an 8.1% pay rise? Aren't you paid around $250k per year? Don't you get free national travel now and for the rest of your life and a free car personally driven by a schmoo?

That would be nice. I'd like that. I would stop asking for more money if I was on that wicket. Sounds rather lovely.

Now Aunty Helen is telling us she, and quite probably Mike, would do the jobs they do for nothing. Ha ha. That's funny. Pleeeeeease.

For all the good they have done, we may as well have not paid them. After nearly 9 years in power I see a health system that still isn't working. I see murderists and rapists still getting light sentences. I see children still being abused and mistreated by their parents. I see infrastructure still woefully behind were it needs to be. I see middle NZ still suffering under a tax burden that is totally unfair. I see this tax income being spent with little or no outcome.

And I see idiots are still in charge.

And why aren't they on performance pay like the rest of us? Why? Because if they were, they would probably have to pay us to stay in power.

Politicians. You gotta hate 'em.

I thought when I started this blog that my little girl would be able to read it one day. The sad thing is, these problems will still be there when she's my age. Nothing will change. How do I know this? Because these were the same problems my father talked about, and his father talked about.

My little girl makes it all worthwhile though. I can be in the foulest of moods, and a smile from her makes it all go away.

Harder than it looks.

I may be repeating myself here, but I can't be jammed checking previous posts.

This whole blogging thing is a lot harder than it looks. Either I'm not the thinker I thought I was, or I'm just plain boring. Nevermind. On with the post....

I was punting around on the web towards the end of last week looking at other blogs for some inspiration. Man are there a bunch of nuts out there. It almost makes you want to cocoon yourself in a concrete bunker.

And there are some people making a bucket load of cash out of blogging as well. I came across this site called Rocketboom. It's a video blog, and apparently she gets paid $80k, US, a week, for advertising on her blog! Is that nuts or what?! Clearly certain people have more money than sense.

I heard on the radio this morning George W Bush talking up the deal the US has put in front of Iran to try and temp them to stop enriching uranium. Doesn't he just sound like an arrogant little man? I mean he stands up and effectively says "This is the deal. Take it or leave it. But if you don't take it, there'll be hell to pay!". Why don't they just shut up and wait for Iran to respond rather than trying to push all the wrong buttons?

Oh wait. That's right. They don't actually want Iran to take the deal because they want to go on another wee bombing raid in a foreign country and try and tell them what to do. Dickhead.

And another thing: why does the US have to stick it's beak in anyway? I don't like the fact that there are nuclear weapons around as much as the next guy, but were does the US get off telling other sovereign nations they can't have such and such, when the US has plenty? How does that work? Can someone please explain?

I'm normally a nuetral sort of guy in these matters. I like to try and get both sides of the arguement before adding my two cents worth. And I'm sure I don't have all the facts/rumors/etc that are out there, but it just doesn't stack up in my mind.

Much like Isreal getting all the funding and help in the world from the US just so they can shoot at and bomb Palestine and it's people. I know the US has announced they are going to give some money to assist Palestine in running it's basic services, and I know that Palestinians aren't exactly squeaky clean, but they still live in dire need of basic infrastructure and services. Don't they?

And wasn't it the USA (and by USA, I mean George) espousing the virtues of a free and democratic society? And then when a nation they don't particularly like actually has a free and democratic election which results in a Government led by a militant organisation, all of a sudden it's not such a great idea.

It all just seems hugely unfair. Maybe it is all a lot harder than it looks.