The XT network debable – Winners and Losers

I was pretty angry at Telecom yesterday when I wrote Pay the $900,000 Telecom you cheap sods, but a day later it seems that they will do so. Good.

Now that the debacle is over, let’s check the winners and losers tally.

Winners – in order
Vodafone, for a well-timed legal action which created a major PR win and delay of a rival network

NBR – and Chris Keall for two excellent articles – one head and shoulders over the rest in summarising the court proceedings, and the other tipping that a settlement was likely today. Even their reporting of the final result is excellent.

Telecom – for capitulating in the end and continuing the journey on the long road back from purgatory

The Lawyers – they always win

Losers – in order

Telecom

1. For not doing the right thing from the start, and installing the filters to prevent interference with Vodafone’s network
2. For not understanding how this was going to play out early enough and letting it get to court
3. For the resulting major PR loss, the delay of the new network and the wasted marketing spend
4. and bonus for all this happening so soon after releasing a video that says how wonderful they are

All of us customers – To have to watch two giants playing silly buggers with each other while we cope with inadequate mobile and broadband infrastructure

Vodafone – for having released into the public domain information that makes us thing you are stretching your network’s capabilities, making us realise why our call and 3G connections are so lousy.

<update: Reynolds is unrepentant, and says that Vodafone will share the costs of Filters. He also says that there are already 1000 filters in place. Courtesy of the NBR – yet again.

Money quote:

Although Dr Reynolds sees his company in the right, Telecom settled the case, seeing a two-week delay in XT’s launch as a price worth paying to rid it of Vodafone’s High Court action, and to answer a request from the Justice, in Dr Reynolds’ words, for both sides “to sort it out”.

and

“there will be some circumstances in which we share costs”.

which has the ring of  Telecom paying almost all of the time.

Also

“Give me a break. The first I heard of it was late last week,” says Dr Reynolds, of Vodafone’s threat to go legal. “They finally came to the table two days ago”.

I would be looking searchingly at the strategy and engineering folk in Telecom if I were Dr. Reynolds. How the heck could this threat have been missed?>

And for your enjoyment after the fold are some tweets from this morning:

@lancewiggs Clearly they didn’t like being called cheap sods… Good result though well done Telecom

@bernardchickey (to @lancewiggs) – Good on Telecom for capitulating. They should have realised/known how this might end

@lancewiggsyup – it was a week, or even 2 months, too late.

@ericalloyd Good on them? I really am sick of all the ‘antler crashing’ meanwhile the customer is paying though the nose

@lancewiggs this is a huge improvement from TG days, and we should praise the wayward children when they play nicely

@ericalloyd wayward children playing nicely with way too many ‘zeros’ for me to be praiseworthy

@lancewiggs  we take the wins we can. It’s a long long way back from purgatory for @TelecomNZ

@bernardchickey:  I’m less sympathetic. I was inside the beast in 05. While ago, but as a customer I don’t see much different. B’band still crap

@peterdarlington Tut tut Bernard, that wouldn’t be in the spirit of cooperation that momentarily rules the cellular landscape…

@bernardchickey Momentarily is the word. New Zealand needs more competition and stoushes to get prices down. This fight has been great

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@amatix  Voda won the PR battle for sure. About the actual issue, Telecom seems in the right…

@stevebiddle While I agree I have lost some respect for Reynolds. He didn’t need to attack Vf like he did.

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@amatix No way – The proceedings look pretty cut and dried to me with Telecom clearly in the wrong. They had to capitulate

@gnat TelecomNZ has the launch date moved?

@bernardchickey: End of May apparently : That’s a whole lot of billboards to change

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After this post was published:

@startupnz (to vodafonenz) did your PR guys drop the ball on this one on what! Looks like you’ve fueled interest in XT (holdng a bat ready to defend my …

@vodafoneNZ hardly. We worked in the spirit of the court. No comment while it’s sub judice (sp). Now it’s sorted. That’s good.

@dazzacollins I think its more a case of making the pain go away on the eve of launch, due to your competitor blindsiding you

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@vodafonenz (to me) Vodafone customers are the winners. They get their service back.

@vodafonenz (to bernard) no need I believe. (in response to comment on billboards changing)

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@nzlemming:  Does this mean the Hamster has crashed it already? :-D

@benkepes the lawyers and vodafone won. Telecom lost on a number of fronts. It’s not as simple as your post would indicate…

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@ajobbins:@VodafoneNZ NOW my phone decides it wants to play up. On 3G tho… Outgoing calls failing/taking forever to connect