XT grew too big, too fast - report

Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds at a February press conference explaining the XT failure. Photo / Dean Purcell

Telecom's XT network grew too big too quickly, an independent review into the failed network has found.

The report, released this morning alongside Telecom's third quarter earnings, shows the network was not ready to manage the large volume of traffic it experienced, despite the rate of acquisition falling within its forecasts.

The $567m network was designed and built by Alcatel-Lucent and launched in May 2009.

XT was designed to provide coverage similar to that of the CDMA network, the report said.

Telecom's chief executive Paul Reynolds said he had taken full responsibility for its bungled XT network, saying the telco did not fully understand some of the issues that resulted as the network struck trouble at the end of last year.

"We were learning on the job," he said.

Telecom is paying about $15 million in compensation to customers who lost service on the network since its launch in May last year.

Findings from an independent review of the XT network show it failed because it was not ready to manage the large volume of traffic it experienced, despite the rate of acquisition falling within its forecasts.

Reynolds said the telco had to get into much more detail than it did with the CDMA network and "we progressed at times not fully understanding some of the issues."

There were some very clear lessons to be taken from the network outages, but there remained strong loyalty to the brand despite those issues, Paul Reynolds told a media briefing today.

Telecom says it had 595,000 XT mobile connections at the end of March, up from 128,000 three months earlier.

The network was now operating at a high standard and would be re-launched back into the market in the coming weeks, he said.

Telecom commissioned the independent review of the network after outages which left thousands of customers unable to use their cellphones last year and earlier this year.

Telecom is paying about $15 million in compensation to customers who lost service on the network since its launch.

Chief executive Paul Reynolds has conceded some "serious errors" were made, but that the report showed overall the network was "sound".

"The fundamental problem was that the network and its operational processes were not able to adapt quickly enough during our ambitious launch programme. We acknowledge this and accept the findings of the report."

The review had been both chastening and heartening, he said.

The key findings of the report were:

* Capacity planning within the network did not appropriately accommodate the level of traffic forecast and experienced or the specific characteristics of the market.

* The approach to operating the network was not appropriate for a new, quickly changing network that included leading-edge technology. As a result the processes that were in place were "not mature enough to predict and pre-empt issues".

The reviewers said Telecom should take a longer term view with installed network elements capable of managing up to 12 months of traffic.

The report said Telecom and Alcatel said programmes to address coverage and performance issues, including addressing the network build issues were already underway.