Vodafone vs Telecom
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:27 am by David FarrarVery disappointing to see that Vodafone has laucnhed legal proceedings against Telecom’s new mobile network, on the grounds of signal interference.
This is gut instinct, but I am suspicious that this is more about knocking Telecom’s marketing schedule off balance, than the only resort left to Vodafone. There may well be technical issues, but was litigation really necessary just 11 days from Telecom’s launch?
We’ll know more once documents are filed and made public. For now I am sceptical, and hope that it is not a sign of Vodafone behaving like an incumbent bully. As I said, there is not enough information public at this stage to know who is right or not.
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- Vodafone buys TelstraClear
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:38 am
I’m disappointed to hear that Vodafone actually think their signal could get any worse.
I use 021 in Auckland and I’d drop on average 2 calls a day. It’s a bloody 3rd rate service now
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 7:42 am
Time Warner behaving like an incumbent bully with their fight to outlaw 100mbs community broadband.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 am
Given that ‘balance of convenience’ is the prevailing factor (especially with respect to its customers), Vodafone could well get away with getting an interim injunction, even though they run some risk of paying Telecom substantial damages down the road.
But hey! Vodafone would no doubt risk paying a measley bit of damages to Telecom for the enormous benefit of de-railing Telecom’s launch.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
Déjà vu
How familiar did the polite Jock Reynolds sound like a Telecom competitor from the past when Telecom F**ked over the New Zealand public and any company that got in their way and Telecom are still ripping everyone off.
Vote:No sympathy from me I’m just sitting back and enjoying it. Go Vodafone and give them a taste of past years.
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:12 am
That’s unbelievable cha.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 9:42 am
Push Polling to Stop Cheap Internet. The city of Wilson has responded
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 10:12 am
Technically this sounds like bollocks. RF interference could afffect drop call rates, site handover and call setup, but voice mail?
They are blaming delays in text messages and unavailability of voice mail on Telecom. These services are all core operations and have nothing to do with the cell network. Also massive text delays and voice mail being “temporarily unavailable” has been happening for at least the last two years on a regular occurance.
Couple this with poor customer service and maybe we are starting to see the emperor has no clothes?
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 10:21 am
Southern Raider
I have a sneaking suspicion that ‘failed’ calls are re-directed to the voice mail system, hence if the network is having trouble placing calls, the voice mail system suffers overload. I suspect that a groaning network could easily double voicemail traffic and associated storage requirements.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 10:27 am
But Peter Voda have been having these issues for quick a long time before Telecom would have switched and sites on.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 10:27 am
Considering how dirty (and illegal) telecom has played since they started getting competition the sympathy glass is a little on the empty side.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 10:29 am
It seems to me that Voda have increased their advertising for 3G just lately.
Coincidental? No, it’s all part of their strategy.
Telecom would (and have) done the same. My sympathies go to no-one except the customers.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 11:38 am
I worked for a few years for the company that provided Vodafone’s voicemail a while ago.
“Voicemail is temporarily unavailable” means that Voicemail has received your call, but cannot complete it due to some internal problem. If there’s work being done on the system, or a storage unit encountered a problem and had to reboot. It’s not normally indicative of heavy traffic.
Southern Raider, about two years ago Vodafone migrated to a new Voicemail system. Although it had it’s teething problems the system is more reliable and stable than the older system ever was. Also, you may not know this network was supposed to launch almost a year ago (a friend who books advertising had to cancel a schedule for telecom last July) so it’s very possible that TComs new network has been active for a long time. NZComms is also testing.
RF interference most definitely could cause delayed text messages. The SMS centers (smsc) retry sending messages on a schedule that gets exponentially longer until it gives up. If you were unable to receive the message for an hour, it’s possible it could wait several hours before trying again. Although, it does use some tricks to deliver messages when users phase on and off the network, a lot of handsets handle this differently.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I assume with time telecoms services will expand to all the different bits and pieces that vodafone 3g has, I would love to see a proper news channel, they would have me swapping networks by the end of the week.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I have worked with and for both these organisations in the past, one of them at a reasonably senior level. It’s technically possible for RF signal to interfere with each others’ networks but good planning and good infrastructure sitting atop the RF layer will sort that out. My guess is that there some truth in the interference story, but that’s being talked up by VF and used as an excuse to attack Telecom. At the end of the day the technology is a known commodity, while the marketing and comparative positioning is very fluid ‘art’. It’s the latter that decides the winners and losers.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Most likely that VF is running cell sites at very low power to keep opex down (3G products have never taken off) and this means an easily distorted signal.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
racer – remember that VF benefits from the global scale and scope of Vodafone Group. My assessment of this is that global content licences will be cheaper for VFNZ while access to new services innovation may be hampered by Group (based in Dusseldorf/Newbury, UK) deciding what innovation is important for NZ. IMO Telecom need to be smart and not compete head-to-head on content, but instead look to monster VFNZ on service innovation.
Vote:May 2nd, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Patrick Starr: I also use 021 in Auckland and have done so for many years. In my line of business a mobile phone is vitial. In a 5 minute conversation of late (past 2 weeks) it is not uncommon for the call to drop out 5 times!
Vote:Vodafones current service is shocking and something needs to be sorted out very quickly (whoevers fault it is) otherwise I will be walking away from them very quickly!!!
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:31 am
NZ Commuinications is launching their network later this month
Vote:I will be very interested in switching to them