Sorry, only Theresa's head will do (updated with PC World radio winners)
Telecom's organisation change to separate its retail and wholesale divisions (notably not including cellular), won't wash with punters, or the government. Partly, experience has made us cynical: any ihug, Orcon or Slingshot customer who has waited for a new DSL connection suspects that the, cough, separately run Xtra gets priority.
[The PC World radio winners were Andrew93, Dave Y and Shaun Wright. Check your inboxes, guys]
And CEO Theresa Gattung is still playing a dangerous game, trying to forestall further regulation with the minimal possible concessions to the government (as has been widely noted, Telecom's 'separation' announcement is short on detail). The risk for Theresa is that the mob will like the sound of separation, and the government will happily play to that with legislation that makes it genuine.
The whole 'separation' announcement reminds me strongly of Telecom's earlier effort to forestall regulation by giving rival ISP's a paltry boost in DSL access to 3.5Mbit/s. Theresa badly misjudged in thinking that concession would be enough.
Again, she's miscalculating how the government will react. But even if the 'separation' announcement had more beef to it, it probably wouldn't be enough. Theresa's personality resonates so strongly through Telecom, that most probably won't accept there's a genuine change of direction until she departs.
What do you think? Comment below and be in to win one of three PC World portable radios. They're crappy $12 jobs, admittedly, but they're battery operated - batteries included! - and will see you safely thru the next power cut. (Please allow for a delay, as comments are moderated before going live.)
PC World is New Zealand’s top selling computing and technology magazine.
Comments
The government should get rid of the telecom monopoly and start giving all contenders an equal go at giving us the best deal possible.
Telecom have also made it next to impossible for any viable competitors to deal with their own customers successfully, the sooner telecom looses most of its money the better for all new zealanders. Bad service + greed isn't needed here.
Telecom have put a set of rules in that aren't needed and are only making our access to dsl, almost impossible. Why do we need caps on our data? What is the point of getting pushed down to 64kb when we go over our quota? This is BS :)
Posted by: Shaun Wright | July 5, 2006 6:25 PM
For a very long time Theresa appeared to be guiding a well organised and efficient organisation. Then the wheels fell of.
To be frank, the whole broadband issue is not the only monopolistic hold that Telecom has on New Zealand's telecommunication industry. I have worked in an opposition company for a time and have felt the pain of dealing with Telecom. Everything you tried to do was blocked and stalled. I used to believe that this was because of a deliberate attempt to maintain their huge monopoly, but I now believe it is because too many of their divisions are simply inept. And this ineptitude continues to the core of people who run the company, namely the Board. My feeling therefore is to allow our biggest company to find a new set of directors, including the CEO.
Posted by: Dave Y | July 5, 2006 1:35 PM
To point the finger solely at Theresa Gattung is ignoring the role and function of the Board of Directors. This isn't about just Theresa. She and the Board are doing what they believe are best for the company and shareholders.
In my opinion, any move or concession is carefully orchestrated by Telecom and any legal 'split' may deliver a more transparent entity for investors. I'm interested to see how this works out....
Posted by: Andrew93 | July 2, 2006 11:00 PM
I'm an Ihug customer and straight after Theresa was on tele saying they will play ball with everyone and get on with the unbundling et al I got an email from Ihug saying Telecom are now stringently enforcing data caps and from July 1 uploads will now count against my data cap where they had not previously. Just another in a long line of examples of how Telecom play ball with the rest of us I guess.
Posted by: Geoff | July 1, 2006 6:23 PM
Telecom continues along its well worn path of deception.
It claims eg that its Explorer plan will download at up to 3.5M but fails to tell you that if you are on a local box Conklin you will never get more than 2.0M. Nor will you ever get the ADSL2+ roll out they claim will be with us shortly.
Essentially the only way we'll all get proper broadband is if the Government takes over Telecom and sets up a new infrastructure just as happened with the rail track.
Posted by: Rob | June 30, 2006 6:34 PM
Telecom continues along its well worn path of deception.
It claims eg that its Explorer plan will download at up to 3.5M but fails to tell you that if you are on a local box Conklin you will never get more than 2.0M. Nor will you ever get the ADSL2+ roll out they claim will be with us shortly.
Essentially the only way we'll all get proper broadband is if the Government takes over Telecom and sets up a new infrastructure just as happened with the rail track.
Posted by: Rob | June 30, 2006 6:33 PM
If you are a shareholder of Telecom you love Theresa.I blame the Govt rather than Telecom as they are doing what any private company would do, make money and protect their back.From their point of view it is a cunning stalling tactic. I don't agree with their stance but can understand it. Perhaps now the Govt may step forward and do the right thing but who knows.
Posted by: Brucie Bear | June 30, 2006 10:37 AM
Just remember a leopard never changes its spots.
I'd like to feature her in a computer game, where you can drop kick her over the goal post.If she lands outside the stadium, you get extra kudos points:)
I hope Telstra buys out TeleCrim when the share price drops to $3.50
It's just great to see a company loose 3 Billion Dollars as punishment for treating it's customers with contempt.It just proves there's no intelligence what-so-ever at CEO level.
Posted by: Blair | June 30, 2006 8:39 AM
The Telecom-style separation sounds like the bare minimum required to actually be a separation. The two units will have the same reporting structure -- albeit with an independent monitoring group -- and it seems somewhat suspcious that they chose not to divide the two completely.
I'm also somewhat surprised at how quickly they managed to decide to split, given that they only really began considering this after the unbundling decision. Could this be a sign that Telecom is preparing itself to be a more nimble player? One can only hope.
Posted by: Stuart | June 28, 2006 5:54 PM