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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

Chris Keall
Thu, 18 Mar 2010

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.

Chris Keall
Thu, 18 Mar 2010
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Three revealing XT moments on 60 Minutes
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