Telecom reveals $5m XT compo plan

Telecom has unveiled a $5 million compensation plan, following last week's outage to its XT mobile network.

A statement issued by the company says the "goodwill gesture" recognises those customers who lost service during the outage but "also makes a meaningful donation to those South Island communities that were most heavily disrupted by the outage."

Thousands of Telecom's XT mobile customers lost service last week when the much-hyped high speed network crashed.

This latest breakdown followed one in mid-December that also hit customers south of Taupo and an intermittent breakdown in November.

It is thought the problem stemmed from the hardware which links southern cell phone sites to the main XT platform.

"We have aimed to make the goodwill gesture as comprehensive as possible, while being fair, transparent and equitable," said Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds.

"We felt that it was important to take a few days to ensure we do the right thing by our customers, recognise those customers who were most badly affected, and also develop a package that allowed us to give something back to the wider communities that were also impacted."

The compensation credits apply to all XT customers based in areas south of Taupo to the bottom of the South Island who were affected by the network crash.

Customers in these areas will have credits applied automatically to their accounts and do not need to take any action, said Telecom.

Both prepaid and postpaid consumer customers will receive a text message advising that they qualify for the credit.

Prepaid customers will have the credit applied to their account automatically by the end of this month and postpaid customers will receive their credit on their next month's billing.

Compensation details:

Customers whose service was degraded on Wednesday 27 January:

• Prepaid consumer customers - $10 credit

• Postpaid consumer customers - One week's worth of plan charges, including Telecom Extras, such as texting or data packages

• Telecom Retail SME customers and Gen-i corporate customers - Two weeks' worth of plan charges, including Telecom Extras, such as texting or data packages

Customers whose service was severely impacted for up to three days between Wednesday 27 January and 10pm Friday 29 January:

•Prepaid consumer customers - $20 credit

•Postpaid consumer customers - Two weeks' worth of plan charges, including Telecom Extras, such as texting or data packages

•Telecom Retail SME customers and Gen-i corporate customers - Four weeks' worth of plan charges, including Telecom Extras, such as texting or data packages

Telecom is also donating more than $250,000 to community projects across the lower South Island.

Reynolds reassured customers that all possible steps are being taken to ensure the stability of the network.

"XT was built as a world class network and we are determined that is what we will give our customers. We will leave no stone unturned as we commence the independent review of XT to ensure we are giving New Zealand the world class network it demands and deserves," he said.

Speaking at a press conference in Dunedin this afternoon, Reynolds confirmed a hardware fault had caused the outage.

The network diagnostics couldn't pinpoint the exact hardware involved, he said. Tests had to start in North and go south.

"That took longer than we would have liked," said Reynolds.

"XT has been built to a high standard both in the radio network and the transmission network."

"We spent large in buying the best technolgy, including fibre," he said. "But sometimes faults happen."

Telecom chief executive of retail Alan Gourdie said the compensation offer was fair.

"We think this is a fair offer. Our customers were asking for less than this offer."

Reynolds said he wished the outage had never happened, but the company had tried to "put its best foot forward" and tried to put a good "goodwill package" together.

He said individual customers could be considered for individual compensation packages.

He said the whole $5 million package was coming from Telecom, none from telecommunications infrastructure company Alcatel - which helped build the XT network.

Reynolds said it was too soon to tell if Telecom would receive any compensation from Alcatel.

"We are working shoulder to shoulder together for our customers."

Reynolds said some businesses were hit harder than regular consumers and this is reflected in the good will offer.

"Customers can be confident... we were faced with an unfortunate incident."

He said they have examined "every part" of the network, and an independent review had been commissioned to make sure "no stone has been left unturned.

Reynolds said it was "a concern" that it could happen again the future.

He said sales for XT were still strong.

- NZ HERALD STAFF