telecommunications

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Telecom XT

Written By: - Date published: 2:39 pm, February 26th, 2010 - 41 comments

The heart of the telecom XT network?

Seriously though, when the 111 call system fails, lives are at risk…

‘Atlases’ don’t deserve a tax cut

Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, February 24th, 2010 - 67 comments

This man is Paul Reynolds, CEO of Telecom. He has overseen the largest corporate disaster in recent New Zealand history. The Nats are planning to give him over $6,600 a week in tax cuts. Apparently this screw up on a $7 million salary is the kind of guy New Zealand needs.

XT Outages

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 1st, 2010 - 58 comments

Last week thousands of Telecom XT network customers were without service, some for three days. This comes just weeks after a similar outage last December. It makes a mockery of Telecom’s claim of “five nines” (99.999% reliability). A recent post at by Peter Griffin at Sciblogs (a site for NZ science bloggers) tears Telecom a […]

Finally, videophones are here and are almost useful.

Written By: - Date published: 9:59 pm, December 26th, 2009 - 4 comments

One of the nice things that has shown up over the last few years is the slow rise of Internet videophone technology. I’ve been using Skype for years for various purposes, largely for doing conferences with remote programmers when playing with ideas during projects. But you know a technology is making headway when you see […]

Time for Telecom to come to its senses

Written By: - Date published: 5:43 am, September 11th, 2009 - 11 comments

Today, 200 Telecom engineers in Auckland and Northland will be fired. Not because there’s no work for them but because Telecom and it’s $7 million CEO want to cut ‘labour costs’  – that’s workers’ incomes, families’ livelihoods to you and me. Here’s how Telecom’s scam goes.  Currently, the engineers are employees of Telecom contractors Transfield […]

Telecom and the logic of capitalism

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 1st, 2009 - 69 comments

There’s nothing like a Tory Government in power and a monopolistic corporate flexing its muscle to remind you that capitalism is all about serving the bosses and screwing the workers. This Telecom dispute. The engineers are being made redundant from their current roles already in batches. On October 1, all the jobs will be gone […]

Ultra-fast broadband? Eventually, but not now

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, August 25th, 2009 - 17 comments

For what seems like the fiftieth time, we’re being told to expect an announcement from Steven Joyce on the shape of the Government’s ultra-fast broadband investment programme. It’s been nine months now and he hasn’t managed to produce anything solid, let alone get the legislative process underway. Before the election, we were told that $1.5 […]

Telecom’s profits first, NZ second

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, August 20th, 2009 - 37 comments

You’ve heard about the Telecom dispute. But while a lot of the focus has been on what it means for the lines engineers involved, an equally important issue is what it means for the future of our country’s infrastructure. Because basically, this whole dispute is a sympton of Telecom’s attempts to increase its profits at […]

Imagine.

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 28th, 2009 - 6 comments

Inspired by a forwarded e-mail about Obama’s speech to the NAS with this line in it Imagine Key committing to invest 3% of GDP in R&D Obama 27th April 2009 at the National Academy of Science I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to […]

Telco hits out at National’s fibre plan

Written By: - Date published: 3:47 pm, September 2nd, 2008 - 34 comments

John Drinnan in the NZ Herald: “One of the biggest challengers in the telecommunications business, TelstraClear, has attacked National Party plans for a fibre-optic network, saying the party should be focused on business. “The telco says the main result of faster broadband links to the home may be more downloads of pornography and movies rather […]