Richard Inder: 'Munted' network and other Telecom excuses

I live on a good street in West Auckland. A house across the road is rumoured to be on the market for just under a million. More than a handful of expensive European cars are parked in the driveways.

Two of my neighbours are engineers. Up the road lives a media executive and an advertising executive, while down the road lives a film maker.

These are the sorts of people who are heavy users of high-speed internet. And on the edge of the most densely populated region of New Zealand, one would expect the major telecommunications provider Telecom to be able to satisfy the demand.

But two and a half months after applying for high-speed internet access, it has not been delivered. This despite handing over $200 for a connection and a rewiring of my house (which has not even been started) and a further $90 for a service I am still unable to use.

Official explanations for the delay have been poor. Only this week my service provider, Slingshot, told me I would not be connected at all. That claim was later disputed by Telecom's network contractor Transfield, which I contacted only after getting no joy from either Telecom or Slingshot. It has so far been the most reliable and helpful provider of information.

Transfield now says I will be connected at the end of the month after new equipment has been installed.

It also claims the network on my street is "munted" and that this is reflected by my less than satisfactory 28 kpbs to 32kbps dial-up internet connection.

It adds Telecom cannot even satisfy demand for new lines in the street.

One always has to be wary of taking an anecdote and representing it as the typical situation.

After all, Telecom insists I am the exception. It aims to connect all users to high-speed internet access within 10 days. The target is also for those applying for internet access through a third-party provider such as Slingshot, which according to their accounts at least is supplying my home with $50-worth a month.

Furthermore, Telecom says that it achieves connection for 79 per cent of those within eight and a half days of applying, with the remainder connected within the 10-day period.

(Telecom says I am one of those with special circumstances.)

However, combining mine with other anecdotes makes up a worrying picture of the state of the nation's telecommunications infrastructure.

The Business Herald technology editor is considering switching back to dial-up internet service because Telecom's so-called high-speed service is not much faster and certainly not worth the $39.95 he hands over each month.

New Zealand's broadband starter plans, which run at a maximum of 256kbps, are well behind the starter plans available in most other developed countries.

Upload speeds on all home plans is a maximum of 128 kbps and is often much less.

When asked whether Telecom is investing enough in its New Zealand network, a respected financial analyst responds with a flat "no".

When asked why, the analyst responds investors would not agree to Telecom spending anything but conservative sums in New Zealand because the company has struggled to make a return on the $1.6 billion it invested in Australia's AAPT.

A Slingshot telesales worker says he hears numerous complaints similar to mine every day, and internet service providers, which resell Telecom's service, claim their customers are not connected as fast as the incumbents'.

ADSL, the technology used to deliver the most affordable high-speed internet, via Telecom's infrastructure, is not available to vast swathes of rural New Zealand, who provide the bulk of our export earnings.

The reason - the network is not up to it.

Finally, the North Island network was brought down by a post hole digger and a few rats.

These anecdotes may bridge the gap between Telecom's claim its expenditure on its network compares favourably with overseas peers and a load of evidence that New Zealand has been short-changed.

A report by the International Telecommunications Union on network investment in 2002 - the most recent year for which figures are available - ranks New Zealand 41st out of the 42 countries in the union's high income category.

The OECD says New Zealand ranks 22nd out of 30 countries for broadband uptake.

When Telecom was privatised in 1990, the move was supported by an anecdote that three-month waiting periods for new phones had become a thing of the past.

It is symbolic that I am now left waiting three months for what is the telephone of my era.