Telecom really are arrogant

[SN4PD]

I know its too be expected, but when I called telecom just now to have what I hope will be the last landline I ever purchase through them disconnected, well, they didn’t want to know why I was switching off their service.

I asked the guy, "Do you want to know why I'm switching off your service", he replied, no "we don’t collect information on that", which I though would be rather valuable market research for the company.

Don't get me wrong I don’t hate telecom (too deep down anyway), I have a telecom (and Vodafone) mobile and a telecom data card, however I have recently had Compass's Wired Country service connected at home (high speed wireless internet that’s not shite) and brought a VOIP line through callplus (italk.co.nz), and a analogue telephone adaptor for $100, now I have a normal home telephone with a real local number, free local calls, 5c national calls, 30c mobile calls and no loss in quality for $10 a month line rental.

I just didn’t think a business could be quite that arrogant (or ignorant). [/RANT]

[RantyDave]

I have recently had Compass's Wired Country service connected at home (high speed wireless internet that’s not shite) and brought a VOIP line through callplus (italk.co.nz), and a analogue telephone adaptor for $100
The reason that every man and his dog doesn't do this is that it's just too much of a pain in the arse. You need to know who all the separate suppliers are, how it all glues together, etc. etc. What it really needs is for someone with a really solid business, a strong and positive brand, lots of technical nouse and experience exchanging calls between private networks and the public telephone system to buy a big arse ISP and sell it as a complete package to their subscribers.

For instance, Vodafone buying iHug.

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3823925a11,00.html

Aha. So, some more bad news for Telecom then.

Dave

[Damon]

perhaps they are just used to people leaving now

[Bloody Mad Woman (BMW)]

Where do I sign up!!! Hopefully Telecom is going to suffer very soon from the competition. They have had the monopoly too long and technology wise are behind the apeball which will become apparent very soon. Not enough forward planning - their 025 and discontinuing that is a fine example. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of pratts!

[SN4PD]

The reason that every man and his dog doesn't do this is that it's just too much of a pain in the arse. You need to know who all the separate suppliers are, how it all glues together, etc. etc. What it really needs is for someone with a really solid business, a strong and positive brand, lots of technical nouse and experience exchanging calls between private networks and the public telephone system to buy a big arse ISP and sell it as a complete package to their subscribers.

For instance, Vodafone buying iHug.

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3823925a11,00.html

Aha. So, some more bad news for Telecom then.

Dave

Agreed, the only one thats tried so far have failed, (Woosh).

[SN4PD]

Where do I sign up!!! Hopefully Telecom is going to suffer very soon from the competition. They have had the monopoly too long and technology wise are behind the apeball which will become apparent very soon. Not enough forward planning - their 025 and discontinuing that is a fine example. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of pratts!

First you need a non Telecom internet connection, i.e. not ADSL (aka Jetstream).

Fibre optic, fixed wireless or cable is required.

[RantyDave]

Agreed, the only one thats tried so far have failed, (Woosh).
Interestingly Vodafone had an early stage investment in Woosh, presumably to work out what it was they were doing right and wrong.

Woosh is an interesting case, and at least on the surface one of the most retarded business plans ever. Basically it read: let's do all the expensive infrastructure parts of a mobile phone company (Woosh uses mobile phone technology), then run it such that we get only a small fraction of the revenue.

It's apparently known as "whoops" to people that work there.

Dave

[SN4PD]

Interestingly Vodafone had an early stage investment in Woosh, presumably to work out what it was they were doing right and wrong.

Woosh is an interesting case, and at least on the surface one of the most retarded business plans ever. Basically it read: let's do all the expensive infrastructure parts of a mobile phone company (Woosh uses mobile phone technology), then run it such that we get only a small fraction of the revenue.

It's apparently known as "whoops" to people that work there.

Dave

Woops.... I love it :lol:, I was one of their original customers (well after they changed the name from Walker Wireless to woosh), the service in the CBD was bloody awful.

Not that anyone's really come out with a decent wireless service..... The wired country CPE costs the company $1200 a pop (so I've heard), and wired country aren’t pushing the service since they got brought out by compass, who only brought them because they wanted the frequency that wired country had for their WiMax network that’s under development.

Still the QOS seems pretty good and you can’t fault 12ms ping times for a point to multipoint system.

[bert_is_evil]

Make sure you call back to make sure they actually do disconnect it - even though you're not in a situation where you're moving away from the location of the previous connection like I was when I got stung, you might continue to recieve the bills just for line rental if the dumbass you spoke to didn't do their job properly. I ended up with a $600 telecom bill for someone elses calls/rental this way that they sent directly to Baycorp without even notifying me. I did fight it for months but eventually gave up.

[JimO]

I have always been happy with telescum but recently have had a couple of problems (1) paid my phone bill for 2 lines with internet around $900 it was made up out of two accounts one was overpaid by $60 and one was overpaid by $60 they charged me $7 for shortpaying one account even though they had the other in credit by that amount. eventually got it sorted. (2) my work cell phone has started playing up (sanyo7400) its just out of warranty, they arnt interisted at all but then had a call from the yellow pages people wanting me to re run my add and she was trying to get me to spend more blabla so i said uhuh not me just the smallest possible add for me this year thanks and told her the reason why , she said she would get on to the telecom mobile branch and see if she could sort it out ( i didnt want a free phone just something towards another because i feel a expensive phone should last longer than 14 months) she was told that because of privacy reasons they couldnt talk to her about it!!!!!!! bastards

[Flyingpony]

... now I have a normal home telephone with a real local number, free local calls, 5c national calls, 30c mobile calls and no loss in quality for $10 a month line rental.
Can you give more information please about all the bits and bobs. I'm always keen to cut costs but this one area there's not much information available in terms of ready made packages, etc.
Thanks.

[BAD DAD]

Anyone old enough to remember pre-Telecom days when the post office ran the show? Now THAT was crap service.

[JimO]

i am BUT we didnt pay anywhere near the amount of money that we are paying now

[scumdog]

i am BUT we didnt pay anywhere near the amount of money that we are paying now

From memory the tolls costs were prohibitive, dunno about other costs.

[GR81]

telecom already knows why people disconnect with them... because they are fuking useless!

they also already know why people use them... because there is fuk all other options haha

theres ya market research for ya! :mad:

[SN4PD]

Can you give more information please about all the bits and bobs. I'm always keen to cut costs but this one area there's no much information available in terms of ready made packages, etc.
Thanks.

First off you need a NON telecom broadband service, I chose wired country via Compass Communictions because its a high speed 2mbit/256k wireless service with about 12ms latency (very important, this is the time it takes for you computer to send information to the excahnge and get a reply back, too high latency and its like talking over a bad satellite line to a villager in botswana).

Im paying $75 inc GST for 10GB of traffic which is dearer than telecom Jetstream for the equivalent plan, however it works out cheaper once you combine it with the italk.co.nz VOIP service at $10 per month.

Telecom Line plus 10GB ADSL is $40+$60 = $100
Italk.co.nz Line plus 10GB Wired Country is $75+10 = $85

Hardware costs are;
$300 for wired country antenna installed on a one year contract (they own the unit)
$120 for 3Com Ethernet Router 3CR858-91 (yes there are other brands, but evrything else in that price range is SHIT, I know I've used most of them).
$120 for Linksys PAP2T VOIP Phone Adapter with 2 Phone Ports (i.e. can have 2 seperate lines with different numbers), the verdicts still out on the Linksys, because well its linksys and may go up in smoke anyday now, but so far its working fine.

Oh and Faxing is out, you need a VOIP line with "DATA Quality" which I dont belive italk currently provide so no dialup modems or Faxes, alarm systems should be fine as they use DTMF.

Hope that helps.

[redbaron36]

Sorry to say it but big businesses aren't overly owrried about small customers. only when they start to feel it do they sit up and take notice.
Also the guys and girls on the phone only follow a set of processes and if things fall outside those they ... get lost and not sure what to say a lot of the time.

[John Banks]

What you'll mostly find is that it's not Telecom being arrogant, it's just that there's no box for "Reason customer is moving" to fill out, and the person you're talking to doesn't give two shits about people leaving.

[The_Dover]

What you'll mostly find is that it's not Telecom being arrogant, it's just that there's no box for "Reason customer is moving" to fill out, and the person you're talking to doesn't give two shits about people leaving.

get back on the phones monkey boy and make theresa some more money for her strapadicktomy

[heyjoe]

I get calls from a Telecom marketing crowd quite a lot trying to talk me into choosing them as a tolls provider. They blab on about the latest deal they have and ask you how many toll calls you make to xxx destination etc then ask how would you like to save $xxx. They ask you "who is your current tolls provider?" I just say "I'm with the other crowd" Pause of silence for a second. Then promote their product again then ask you if you would like to change over right now! I say "no thanks, I have no intention of doing so"

They never actually ask why don't I choose them. If they did I would tell them of the numerous stupid errors they have made with our accounts over the years and how difficult it is to get them to apologise or get it sorted.

They also manage to convey a general image in public of being a greedy relentless powerful company that doesn't give a toss about ordinary people out there. How many times have we seen them on Fair Go? (lost count)

[SN4PD]

Im sure most people have seen this video, but just in case here it is (http://www.dave.co.nz/funny-videos/index.html?dfile=mediafiles/video-funny/mediafiles/video-funny/tv/telecon.flv) :cool:

PS Coudent find the high quality quicktime version this early in the morning.

PPS Found the quicktime http://67.18.149.106/~telecom/telecon-hires.mov

[Pixie]

Where do I sign up!!! Hopefully Telecom is going to suffer very soon from the competition. They have had the monopoly too long and technology wise are behind the apeball which will become apparent very soon. Not enough forward planning - their 025 and discontinuing that is a fine example. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of pratts!

Behind the apeball???