KEY POINTS:
Oh dear. Telecom is about to start improving its broadband service again.
Remember what happened last year? We were promised "faster, cheaper broadband".
What we got, according to the Commerce Commission, was an increase in costs. For a significant number of Telecom customers, speeds actually decreased.
Sadly, this
latest technological improvement looks destined to be equally underwhelming, at least initially.
The first bad omen is the marketing campaign around the company's deployment of new broadband network technology. There isn't one.
In fact Telecom are surely breaking new ground by running what could be described as an anti-marketing campaign: one designed to extinguish any enthusiasm or expectations for the new technology in the eyes of the media and their wholesale customers. (While to the public, they're simply saying nothing.)
The focus of all this caginess is the introduction of technology which by rights broadband users should be welcoming with open arms. Telecom is beginning to phase in the next generation of copper wire broadband: ADSL2+.
Replacing the ubiquitous ADSL1 we've grown so fond of cursing, ADSL2+ is common global technology and in theory offers download speeds of up to 24 megabits per second.
That's a great leap forward from the 2Mb/s that seems to be the benchmark for happiness on a non-congested exchange these days. Divide that speed by 20 or 30 if you have the misfortune of living in a neighbourhood where heaps of other people actually like using the net as well.
The citizens of Pakuranga will be the first to get access to ADSL2+ when Telecom upgrades their local exchange next month. The company is promising to have the technology in 120 exchanges by the end of the year. It says by then the coverage will extend to Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin and account for half of all broadband connections on its network.
Where possible, the replaced ADSL1 technology will be used to introduce or upgrade broadband technology to other parts of Telecom's network.
But that's where the promises end. No pithy "faster, cheaper" catch-cry this time around.
Telecom says customers with an ADSL2+ capable modem "may" experience faster internet speeds but hastens to add that this will depend on the distance they are from the exchange (they must be less than 2km away to notice an improvement), the quality of the wiring between them and the exchange, and the "same variables" that affect the service today.
Telecom says speeds won't go down as a result of the upgrade although Scott Bartlett, regulatory affairs general manager at competitor Orcon, suspects that, like last time, some customers will suffer slower speeds as a result of ADSL2+.
He says Telecom hasn't invested in the "backhaul" infrastructure required to make effective use of ADSL1, let alone ADSL2+.
"That's not to say that ADSL2+ is a bad thing, it's not, it's a great thing," says Bartlett.
Telecom's response is that it is working through backhaul issues with its wholesale customers.
These are frustrating times for Telecom's competitors as the industry wades through the mire of regulatory processes required to achieve local loop unbundling and its prize of a more competitive environment for broadband and telecommunications service provision.
The competitors' hope is that once issues such as wholesale pricing are sorted out and they gain access to install their own equipment in Telecom's exchanges - possibly in the second half of this year - making a real, fast, version of ADSL2+ will be possible.
CallPlus chief executive Martin Wylie welcomes the more inclusive approach Telecom has adopted towards its wholesale customers since Matt Crockett was appointed to head the company's wholesale division.
But Wylie shares Bartlett's frustration over the lack of detail available on vital Telecom strategies such as improving backhaul.
"I do think there has been a genuine attempt to start consulting and inject some new attitudes and people into the process to try and break the kind of stand-off mentality that had been there previously," says Wylie.
"I think he [Crockett] has done a lot of good things."
Telecom deserves credit for sticking to its plans to upgrade to ADSL2+. It's just a shame that years of underinvestment in its monopoly network mean the infrastructure is not immediately available to make this the great leap forward in broadband connectivity it should be.
Let's hope Orcon's fears of further speed drops prove unfounded and, at the very least, this "upgrade" doesn't turn into another farcical degradation in service for some broadband customers.