Three revealing XT moments on 60 Minutes
Last night, TV3’s 60 Minutes had a “warts and all” look behind the scenes at Telecom during its string of XT network failures.
In fact, behind-the-scenes footage of the crisis was supplied by Telecom’s own camera crew.
Unsurprisingly, it showed nothing embarrassing, and consisted mainly of stoic shots of call centre staff bravely soldiering on, plus a couple of earnest executive conference call shots.
Present day footage was largely confined to head spin doctor Tina Symmans showing Amanda Millar around a series of empty meeting rooms, which (try to use your imagination) were full during the crisis, plus an interview with chief executive Paul Reynolds.
Nevertheless, there were three revealing little moments.
1. Asked about his feelings as the fourth crisis hit, Dr Reynolds said he thought “I can’t believe they’ve let us down again”. They, of course, being Alcatel-Lucent.
2. During a key conference call, before the Dunedin compensation announcement, Telecom’s director of mobile Paul Hamburger - aka “Mr XT” - was absent and has to dial-in. That's curious given's the handset and roaming specialist, and hard decisions had to be made about downgrading key clients phones.
Dr Reynolds explained that the Florida-resident Mr Hamburger was “on the phone all through the night” during times he was not making his ultra-long-distance commute to Auckland, where he apparently spends around two thirds of his time. Still, it’s not a good look, especially at a time when analysts are already lamenting Mr Hamburger’s failure to secure Apple’s iPhone for XT. Is he Gone-burger?
(Speaking of bad looks, TV3 used - without permission - a classic Computerworld photo of Mr Hamburger outside a conference, looking more like a Seinfeld extra than ever, surrounded by empty chairs and looking a little lost. He may be an ace strategist, but photo ops aren’t his forté.)
3. Dr Reynolds conceded, finally, that the outages may have been “less widespread” if Telecom had had more radio network controllers (RNCs) at the time the first outage hit (then it had two; now it has four. Vodafone has six. For any telco, an RNC controls network traffic in a specific area. They cost around $US12 million each).
So: not a lot new.
Still, beyond the blunt, appalling fact that its mobile network has failed four times, I do give Telecom credit for open communication during the crisis, including its new Inside XT site that details RNC upgrades and other issues.
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Comments and questions17
is that what Reynolds said? has to import his buddies from offshore like Hamburger and Frank Mount and Alcatel.
Sounds a lot like Sol Trujio at Telstra with his Amigos. How many of them are left? Not one.
Blurb on the NBR heads-up email...
"Amid the spin - and footage supplied by Telecom's own cameras - a few slithers of truth emerge."
Slithers of truth? Was that a Freudian slip Mr Keall (or whoever wrote the copy for it?). Gave me a good giggle either way!
I agree though, not really anything new and certainly nothing that the industry (and interested, informed outsiders) don't already know. Its unlikely to see Reynolds 'bagging' anyone, not his style.
Bit naff and typical of journos to hound for the answer they want (re: regret question towards the end). Hindsights 20/20 and we'd all make decisions differently if we knew all the consequences before-hand. Theres just no way any telco would ever want its network to fail or even sputter along - noone makes money that way.
So a strong case for Telecom to handle the Broadband roll out then??
This was a carefully spin doctored appeal for public sympathy with footage being provided by Telecom themselves...
Are TV journalists all out at lunch? Or can they not work as they all have XT handsets.....
It is very typical of new Zealand that we think that only someone with a foreign accent can do the really big jobs.
Gatting probably reinforced that belief but the reality is that she was chosen poorly without looking at all available people - a typical right place right time scenario for gatting.
These special, clever Americans and British and Asians seem to have very high capabilities at cockups, i am unsure that a kiwi would be as able in that realm.
the core is that if we keep bringing these people in who are only looking to beef up their CV's before moving on then we will never upskill our workforce or learn to trust that, actually, it's not that hard to tell people what to do, to drive strategy and enforce outcomes. Interestingly many international companies employ Kiwis specifically because they do have these skills and more yet we have to import every failed executive from overseas who is able to convince the underskilled boards that they can do what noone else can.
I don't think there are any decent sector executives in NZ which makes the huge salaries paid to the Telecom bunch even more ridiculous. I was amazed to see Bruce Sheppard say that Telecom needed to pay huge salaries to its NZ managers because "its a global market" or words to that effect. No other Telco in the world would pay these guys the amounts Telecom does. None of them - like their employer - would have a shred of credibility in the major overseas markets. Telecom is a great source of fees for superannuated Americans such as Messr Hamburger and Mount and who can blame them for talking the money. Having the head of XT "commuting" from Florida is simply absurd and no amount of spin can disguise that. Why doesn't he move here for a few years? Perhaps his commitment (or skill) is less than everyone thought.
I thought Telecom had about 400,000 XT customers compared with Vodaphone 3G of over a million. Telecom 2 cabinets, Vodaphone 4.
I read over the past week that Vodaphone has had several lost service periods which it's CEO said was just capacity problems from growth!!!
There is now ay back after this no matter what spin is applied. And NZ television wake up and do not just let yourself ber use for PR purposes. Investigate thibngs instead.
6 RNCs not 4
Let's recount the questions we saw asked:
1: Do you have a culture of extravagance? (apparently, "No")
2: Do you regret signing Alcatel? ("No")
3: Are you embarrassed by the failure? ("Yes")
4: Have you fixed it yet? ("No")
That's hardly cutting edge stuff. Where's the meat? where's the story?
Why weren't any customers interviewed? Why weren't any of the analysts talking about its impact? Why wasn't Reynolds asked about his relationship with the head of Alcatel? Why wasn't the stoush with Vodafone when XT launched brought up? Why didn't the journo do any research about the history of Telecom up to that point?
As for using supplied footage - do we know the film was taken during the outage? Do we know it wasn't staged for the cameras? (Caring managers wandering the shop floor patting hard working staff on the back saying "stiff upper lip, what?" seems a tad unlikely)
A fluff piece to end all fluff pieces.
1) this is old OLD news 2)at least telecom actually fronted - Where were Vodafone when their mobile network died in Auckland last March, or last week in Wellington and Taupo.
Where Telecom fronted with its CEO, Vodafone send in their junior coffee boy? Like LV Martin said, its the putting right that counts.
Mr Reynolds.
interested that media statements always state voda have 6 RNC's, but is this not hiding the reality that there RNC's probably are split between their 3G network and their older GSM network?
So how many RNC's do they have supporting 3G?
RNC's only look after the 3G network. There are other parts of a mobile network that look after the 2G network, so to answer your question, there are 6 RNC's supporting the 3G network.
Did not die at all what rubbish 1 single cell 2G 900/1800 with 3G 2100 attached went off air and nothing more. There have been no network failures in Taupo and March Last year the traffic was handed to the 2G network.
RNCs as already pointed out only carry 3G packet switch and circuit switch data....2G is controlled by BSCs which are completely different core elements
Also note that Vodafone have physicaly located their 6 RNC's around the country and not just in two locations like Telecom. Even if they have 4 RNC's in two locations, to resolve capacity or RNC failure, they are still vunerable to a major outage should the Transmission/transport section of their network (between cellsite and RNC) experience problems. Or even Power issues at the RNC site. This is only providing a thin layer of resiliency for their customers for minimal cost.
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