by frog
I found this post by r0b at The Standard so funny I just had to steal it:
“Is this the real reason Telecom called their new network XT?
Seriously though, this text book case of how not to run a business has got well beyond a joke. When the 111 call system fails lives are at risk. Add Telecom to the list of dodgy privatisation decisions (NZ Railways, electricity) that aren’t looking so flash in retrospect…”
[Clue here, for those under 35 who don't get the joke.]
The XT network is such a shambles, maybe Telecom should consider rebranding it “National Standards XT”.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Sun, February 28th, 2010
Tags: national standards, privatisation, Telecom, the standard, XT
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
so help me, I even remember seeing those ‘big blues’, and being told this was ‘the big new thing’….
I suddenly understand how my grandfather must have felt in the 70′s, (having been born in 1898) – “these things have changed so much, so fast” – he was mostly referring to televised rugby, a new-fangled thing that kept him amused in the decade before a heart-bypass operation killed him.
I was amused to see glossy full-colour junkmail turn up from Vodaphone this weekend – first time the junk mail has made me laugh in a while. They are very quick to point out their advantages in the wake of Telecom’s drastic fails this week.
Now why can’t we get a law passed that says they can advertise as much as they like, it just has to be on recycled paper with non-toxic inks, suitable for composting?
Would do great things for the mounds of recycled paper that are collected each week by city councils, by providing a secure market, and I would get free cellulose that was safe to put in the compost bin to even out the greenwaste components…. win-win!
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As you suggest, it will be Vodafone who are having the biggest laugh.
But the 111 service is something that should never have been privatised. Lives are dependent on it. If it failed and the Government were responsible for it, the Government is publicly accountable and the responsible Minister would likely be on his or her way to the political gallows.
But when it fails and a transnational company is responsible for it, no-one is publicly accountable.
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I agree. Last year I spent over 5 hours on the phone to Vodafone when i couldn’t connect to the internet, eventually being directed to someone in China who within 5 minutes of asking me a few questions and advising me of a few diagnostic processes was able to tell me that my router (supplied by Vodafone) was kaput and I needed to get a new one.
The new router cost $50 – the downtime on the phone to Vodafone before I finally got connected to someone who actually knew what they were doing cost a lot more.
I still stick with them though, because the stories I hear about Telecom are even worse. The problem is that either Vodafone or Telecom buys out anyone who does anything innovative in IT, and Telecom has the lines monopoly.
It’s a bit like the oil companies cartel and the supermarket duopoly – at the end of the day, there is no real competition and the consumer sucks a kumara.
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Last week I just closed my account with Telecom and went entirely with slingshot. This may be good for benificiaries to know:-
Last month my phone rental with telecom was $49.00
” ” my Slingshot internet services $15.77
Total $64.77
This month both of the above will cost me $44.95
The above do not include tolls and because of telecom we can’t get broadband.
It pays to patronise th smaller operators.
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Unfortunately I work from home through my computer so I need to have broadband and tolls included in the package.
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In the mid 90′s I used an XT for two years. It had two 20 megabyte hard disks in it.
It had a way of focussing my mind – the only thing I could do on it was computer programming, everything else was impossible. The internet?! Colour pictures?! HA!
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I had to eventually give up on Vodaphone after having to ring them every month for six months just to get my monthly invoice that their computer kept telling them had been sent. They even tried to blame the Post Office. The most incredible thing about it was when i finally switched to Slingshot I waited patiently for my final invoice from Vodaphone and got instead an automated phonecall some weeks later to warn me of my unpaid debt. I rang them back to inform them that i did not owe them anything yet as i had not received an invoice to which they said they would send one. It never arrive. Two weeks later i got a letter from the debt collectors.
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