In a 12.30pm to 1.30pm webcast to big customers and journalists, Telecom Gen-i boss said that “thirty something” XT cellsites had yet to be restored.READ ALSO: Live blog of Quin's webcastDuring his last update, by email, at 11.30pm last night,
In a 12.30pm to 1.30pm webcast to big customers and journalists, Telecom Gen-i boss said that “thirty something” XT cellsites had yet to be restored.
READ ALSO: Live blog of Quin’s webcast
During his last update, by email, at 11.30pm last night, Mr Quin said 39 cellsites had yet to be restored.
At the height of the XT outage, which began on Wednesday, 54 of the 459 cellsites controlled by Telecom’s Christchurch switching centre were affected by the blackout.
Most of the sites are in the deep south, but during the webcast Mr Quin fielded queries about XT performance from users around the country.
Mr Quin said Telecom could not give a time frame for the remaining cellsites to come back online.
The focus was on bringing cellsites back online one by one, and slowly but surely, to minimise impact on the rest of the network. Last night, Mr Quin identified "registration storms" as each base station was restored as one of the technical issues his company is grappling with.
As Telecom and its partners become more confident, more than one site at a time may be brought back online simultaneously.
Priority was being given to cellsites in the most densely populated areas; where key Gen-i clients were located; or where events such as concerts were taking place.
Close to signing reviewer
In regard to the independent review of XT ordered by chief executive Paul Reynolds, Mr Quin said Telecom was close to signing with a party that could carry out the audit.
It would be an international organisation with no ties to Telecom or its partners, and the review’s recommendations would be made public, said Mr Quin.
The review would look at process, operational and decision making issues as well as technical ones, said Mr Quin, when asked if it would address structural and cultural factors.
More RNCs on the way
On the issue of Telecom having two RNCs (radio network controllers) on its network to Vodafone’s six, Mr Quin said that some telcos in the UK had four for the whole country, and that redundancy wasn’t the issue.
However, Telecom plans to install more RNCs. This is to deal with the growth of the XT network, said Mr Quin.
In response to a question from a representative of the Napier City Council about calls still dropping out, Mr Quin said that call completion rates were now “in the mid nineties.”
CDMA still being switched off
Mr Quin said that phones compatible with Telecom’s older CDMA network had been put on planes and driven by Gen-i staff to key clients.
Asked by NZ Post whether it should keep its old CDMA phones to see the organisation through outages, Mr Quin said it was important to make contingency measures, but did not directly answer the question, instead saying individual customers should discuss it with their Gen-i rep.
Asked if Telecom still planned to decommission its CDMA network in 2012, Mr Quin replied that it did.
Compensation for customers, for Telecom
Mr Quin reiterated the immediate focus had to be on restoring service before customer compensation was addressed.
The Gen-i boss deflected a question about whether Telecom will in turn seek compensation from its partners, including Alcatel-Lucent. Telecom would take accountability, said Mr Quin. It has chosen the best partners and was working closely with them to resolve the outage.
Telecom shares (NZX: TEL), which were at $2.44 mid-week, were down five cents to $2.36 in late afternoon trading.
