KEY POINTS:
Telecom hasn't exactly inspired faith in its new Worldmode service after delaying the launch of its merged voicemail service and issuing SIM cards to its customers that don't work.
The idea of Worldmode is good in theory - you have one phone, the Samsung 531, which has both
GSM and CDMA chips in it so it can be used pretty much in any country in the world.
The plan was for Telecom's roaming customers to have one phone number and voicemail box to cover the two accounts that are tied to the phone - the monthly plan the user relies on in New Zealand and the roaming plan tied to the Telecom SIM card in the phone for overseas use.
Integrating those voicemail services was always going to be tricky, especially across dozens of different roaming partners around the world and Telecom has had to delay the full Worldmode launch as a result.
As a Telecom spokesperson explained to me:
"We decided to do this because of an inconsistency with the voicemail system which only became apparent when we began using the live service - outside the test environment we'd been working in.
"So whilst in fact our WorldMode capability is live as of yesterday as originally planned, we won't be activating Telecom SIM cards until we're completely happy with the voicemail system."
I've tested the Worldmode phone in the UK (GSM), Spain (GSM), Hong Kong (GSM) Singapore (GSM) and Australia (CDMA) and it worked well.
It's a nice compact handset. But the phone had separate numbers at that stage - one for the 027 account, the other for the 02 SIM Telecom was using for roaming.
It was good to be able to make calls and send texts from GSM-centric countries, but merged voicemail functionality is essential to the whole proposition.
If Telecom can't sort that out, and soon, it could derail the company's new global roaming strategy.
All of these headaches will, of course, become pretty academic when Telecom builds its GSM network next year, Worldmode is a stop gap solution - one that's showing plenty of gaps at the moment.
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