"Let down": Paul Reynolds, Telecom CEO
Telecom CEO Paul Reynolds has fronted-up to journalists at a press conference this afternoon over last night’s further XT outage, and the situation as a whole. He said that the company recognises the inconvenience that customers have been put to and announced a further compensation package for both consumer and business XT customers. An angry Reynolds spoke of how he feels “let down” by network operator Alcatel-Lucent, that “enough is enough” and that the company have been “put on notice” following this fourth outage. Hit ‘read more’ for the full press release.
23 February 2010
Telecom CEO Paul Reynolds this afternoon announced a range of significant measures aimed at restoring customers’ faith in XT following a series of major and unacceptable outages for tens of thousands of customers in recent weeks.
He also announced significant changes to the way in which the XT network will be managed, as a result of the unacceptable level of service.
“For too many of our customers, we have not lived up to the promises we made about XT when the network was launched,” Dr Reynolds said.
“So that’s why we are taking action on a broad range of fronts, covering the operation and management of the network, and customer offers.
“Alcatel Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen has committed to providing the full global resources of his company to get these issues fixed,” said Dr Reynolds.
XT loyalty recognition
For the next three months all XT customers from Taupo southwards during this week’s outages who choose to stay with XT will receive a loyalty credit to their account.
For consumer on account customers this will amount to 33% of the customer’s monthly plan charge including their Telecom Extras such as texting and mobile broadband plans. Customers can expect this credit to be applied from their next bill for a three month period. So on a One Rate 100 plan for $49.95 per month, a customer’s monthly plan cost will in effect reduce to $33 per month.
For pre-paid customers we will apply a 33% bonus every time they top up over the next three months.
For business On Account SME customers and Gen-i enterprise and corporate clients this loyalty credit will amount to 50% of their monthly plan charges over the next three months.
We recognise that customers south of Taupo are unlikely to want to sign up to a longer term contract, so we are ensuring we have offers in store that are attractive.
Dr Reynolds said that Telecom people are now taking much stronger involvement in the day-to-day management of the operations of the XT network.
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.
“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,” said Dr Reynolds.
How do you think Reynolds did this afternoon? Have Telecom done enough? Can you rely on XT? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Telecom really have been let down by Alcatel-Lucent. I read something recently they chose Alcatel-Lucent over Siemens because they were a cheaper option (perhaps due to their lack of experience!). The problem is neither don't seem to know what the problem is, so I can't see a solution coming anytime soon (hence the 3 month offer maybe?). So Noooooo, you can't rely on Telecom, but having bought my iPhone 3GS from Apple, going to Voda does not give me any benefits re hardware. I'll just have to stick it out. Having said that, I'd rather pay full and get 99% service than 50% and not know whether your texts are getting through and having calls drop out.
(tronco has made 6 comments)
$60 = $100
Have as much downtime as you want, XT!
(Mak has made 222 comments)
i live in blenheim and i havnt had any problems with xt my 3g iphone is working fine on the hand my vodafone 3gs keeps dropping cell coverage
(Xt3rminater has made 29 comments)
To be honest the outages havnt affected me that much. Alot of people I have spoken to are angry at telecom because the news told them to be.
Despite the downtimes etc with XT I have still had half the issues I had with vodafone:
- 6 months of call drops
- pathetic 3g speed and coverage
- money dissapearing from my pre paid balance
- data apparently being used when my phone is off
- foreign callcenter with whom I've never spoken to a person and not had to make them repeat themselves at least 3 times
- crap offers available to pre pay
- and finally the crappy $1 to call tech support which despite strong reassurence from a certain vodafone employee on geekzone has NEVER been credited back to my account.
I'm afraid vodafone is the red devil. I will stick with xt's patchy outages for life if it means not going back to vodafone.
I personally think the media is still stuck in it's 90s "lets bash telecom" mindset. If they reported on half of vodafones failures then people would be jumping to 2degrees in drones.
(Plamsaglows has made 52 comments)
^ great post.
XT is having a rough patch but it sure beats Vodafone or 2degrees.
(Mak has made 222 comments)
Is the 33% bonus topup additional to the normal topup bonus for prepay customers. We already get 33% when you put $60 on
(leStar has made 63 comments)
I agree with above comments…everyone dogging on Telecom/XT when Vodafone have their fair share of outages too…oh hello they had 3 in two weeks themselves http://www.geekzone.co.nz/sbiddle/1951
(camtab has made 8 comments)
Yes, it has been annoying not being able to txt or having txt get through to friends HOURS/DAY later! But, compared to Vodafone… Im sticking with XT. I had sooo many problems with Vodafone. And I HATED being charged $1 to talk to someone in a foreign country that couldn’t even fix my problems!
XT has better plans for me. $12 for unlimited txts, $12 for 120mb data. Top up $20 a month and get $25. So all in all it only costs me $19 a month to be on XT. The customer service is good.
Im sticking with XT…
(nzjoel has made 5 comments)
It’s additional to the amount you top-up not the amount that is received. Below are the amounts for standard top-ups.
$20 + $5 (25% of $20) + $6.60 (33% of $20) = $31.60
$40 + $12 (30% of $40) + $13.20 (33% of $40) = $65.20
$60 + $20 (33% of $60) + $19.80 (33% of $60) = $99.80
(Dan has made 610 comments)