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The great New Zealand telecommunications battle |
carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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If the MTR is cut then we may actually see Networks offering the sort of plans they have in the UK with heaps of anytime minutes and stacks of txts. Surely a reduction in MTR is needed to encourage NZers to throw away their landlines and use mobiles for all their calling. With plans like those in the UK, people would have no problem signing up to a 12/18/24 month term. If Vodafone really want to see people shift from Prepay to On Account then they need to make On Account plans the only plan you'll ever need for all your calling; hence a drop in MTR.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
Telecom has a new log-o!
To me it looks like an imploding star which is quite appropriate considering the year they've had.
- Missed releasing XT in November 2008, chooses to forget about a 2G GSM network and only make a W-CDMA network with a June release date.
- Failed to install filters on XT, taken to court by Vodafone. XT release initially bought forward then delayed.
- Found to be in breach of competition regulations by forcing Wholesale Internet customers to back out of their own equipment or be disadvantaged on price. Potential fine $10m+ .
- Releases useless XT ads and laughable branding.
- Talks with Apple over supply of iPhone break down.
- Releases a pseudo-iPhone plan but is shutdown by Apple when specific-carrier only firmware locks out some features from iPhones on XT.
- Announces all its network service technicians will be made redundant and forced to join an Australian contractor as contract employees, taking on all Telecoms business expenses while earing much less. Telecom stands to save 30% on labour costs but claims this is "a great business opportunity for its employees". Cue TUI billboard. Telecoms employees join the dole queue and it's broadband network falls apart, especially in Northland.
- Telecom's annual report states CEO's salary rate of $5m + $2m in bonuses while Telecoms profit falls significantly. Network technicians and their Union spit tacks.
- New logo and branding released using a similar colour to 2 Degrees Mobile.
Implosion indeed. 
[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2009-10-18 09:03 ] |
Muhammad-Oli
Joined: Jun 13, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: The NZ of L
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You don't seem very fond of Telecom.  I'd say the log-o (funny we're using a 2degrees term) doesn't look too bad, and they definitely needed a new one. But it definitely isn't great.
To be honest though, I think they would call it a successful year. Their network has received a lot of attention and a lot of people have made the switch to it either from their CDMA 027 or from Vodafone. The ads really were terrible though.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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The light show on the Auckland waterfront to celebrate XT's new logo is pretty good. It ends tonight at 11:55.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrMAvWirFGA
[ This Message was edited by: carkitter on 2009-10-19 20:56 ] |
Muhammad-Oli
Joined: Jun 13, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: The NZ of L
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Looks cool but it's pretty lame having their logo all through it. I can't stand art that is ruined by corporate crap like that.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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Not to be outdone, Vodafone has created Symphonia
I can understand the challenge from a networking point of view, but the end result I thought was underwhelming, unlike the XT 'Night Lights' show. Anyone keen to download the ringtone?
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Muhammad-Oli
Joined: Jun 13, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: The NZ of L
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Yeah that Vodafone ad seems like it's supposed to be one of those 'epic' ads like Sony's one note ad that featured an orchestra of people all playing a single note to form a song, or one of many different car manufacturer's ads. But Vodafone's doesn't seem to have worked out. In my opinion it looks and sounds awful and wasn't worth the effort.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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Perhaps with a different song it would have had more impact. Perhaps the Dandy Warhol's tune "Bohemian Like You" as used to feature on Vodafone ads (I still associate that track with Vodafone despite it being used by every ad agency in history) or "Song 2" by Blur? Beethoven is just not contemporary enough for a sizeable mobile phone challenge such as this.
There was clearly a lot of work behind the scenes - creating a database to log which phones are playing what tune and when and have which 021 number, recording the tunes, storing them on 1000 phones, sending 2000 txts messages within 1 minute on 1 macrocell without overloading the network or interfering with customers reception... etc. Just keeping 1000 phones charged presents a challenge in itself.
We here on Esato know that phones have personality and a character all of their own but that didn't really come across in the filming of the ad, which is as shame really. I'm sure the Vodafone people understand that but the director might not have.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
Latest details on Telecom's XT subsriber numbers here.
Among the highlights are that XT subscribers are 72% postpaid (account) customers and that they pay on average 16% more to Telecom after they make the switch. Telecom have lost 85,000 027 customers recently and I'll bet that a lot of these are prepaid customers baulking at the XT prices. When the subscriber base is as price sensitive as Telecom have trained them to be with $10TXT, it's not surprising really. The only way to get teens onto XT is to get them hooked on a new fad of social networking via internet websites and that means substantially cheaper data packages or unlimited data to certain sites. Even Vodafone haven't cracked this yet so it's a tough ask.
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Muhammad-Oli
Joined: Jun 13, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: The NZ of L
PM |
Funny, I read your post last night then this morning looked in the paper to see a Noki E63 being advertised by Vodafone. Now the E series is a business series but Vodafone is obviously aiming it at the youth crowd and trying to get some of that Facebook group onto Vodafone. The ad says "Designed for Facebook and Email" and one of its main features is "Easy access to Facebook". I really don't think the E63 will appeal to teens to be honest, but I guess it's good to see them try.
Telecom on the other hand were advertising what I think was a Samsung clamshell as "the Bebo phone" when XT first started up.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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I though Bebo was for teens and Facebook was for twenty somethings...
I don't inhabit either, I've become slack with Twitter even after getting my iPhone app back.
Cant see the E63 sales improving frankly. It's not a 'cool' phone.
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Muhammad-Oli
Joined: Jun 13, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: The NZ of L
PM |
On 2009-11-09 09:18:31, carkitter wrote:
I though Bebo was for teens and Facebook was for twenty somethings...
I don't inhabit either, I've become slack with Twitter even after getting my iPhone app back.
Cant see the E63 sales improving frankly. It's not a 'cool' phone.
I think it's more like nobody uses Bebo anymore apart from spam-bots, and everyone is on Facebook. I'm not using any, and even went and deleted my Twitter account.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
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A very good article here about the challenges facing Mobile Operators wanting to balance data revenues versus growth of smartphone sales. Lengthy but worth it.
In the early 2000's Mobile Operators were touting mobile as the replacement for fixed-line communications; "Soon, everything will be wireless" they claimed. But since the advent of the iPhone which has singlehandedly overstressed every 3G network that has supplied it, Network Operators are coming to the reality that they can't build infrastructure fast enough (or pay for it) to accommodate the surge in smartphone sales that is anticipated over the next few years. Ironically, wifi, femtocells, data caps, traffic shaping, banned applications, price increases, etc are all being discussed as the way forward for mobile data in sharp contrast to the expectation which has been built up recently that Mobile data would get cheaper, faster and more readily available.
The iPhone has dominated internet requests from mobile devices for sometime, yet the Motorola Droid has had an instant effect on the request statistics, with the Cliq playing a minor role. What happens when SE releases the X10 and it's other Android phones it has planned. I think we should expect to see some major changes in the Mobile data plan space soon. As Android sales begin to overtake iPhone sales, that will present a problem for Network Operators.
Telecom and Vodafone have both fixed-line and mobile infrastructure so are well placed to converge services but 2 Degrees is not. Perhaps a hookup with TelstraClear or Orcon would be prudent as 2D moves toward it's rollout of 3G services?
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
XT has now had it's third outage and customers are getting irate. Why would they switch from Vodafone in the first place? Why would they upgrade from 025 to 027 and on to XT - have they not learned their lesson? I struggle to have sympathy for some of these people, honestly.
When XT arrived there was a lot of nonsense floating around online about Telecom having 'changed' about 'Vodafone having become the big bad bully', about a paradigm shift in the NZ marketplace. The reality is that nothing has changed, Vodafone are still doing a great job and Telecom are still trying to get away with stuff and making excuses for their networks.
I look forward to the independent review with interest. I'm sure Paul Reynolds wouldn't have instigated it if he didn't already know it would put Alcatel-Lucent in the firing line. Hopefully we'll get some insight into the thinking behind Telecom's decision to go 850MHz, have no 2G backup and not install signal filters to prevent interference with Vodafone.
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carkitter
Joined: Apr 29, 2005
Posts: > 500
From: Auckland, NZ
PM |
Great article about Telecom's current status and challenges here.
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Posted: 2009-09-08 06:03
