Which has been the worst new Telecom/Spark Product launch

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Which has been the worst new Telecom/Spark Product launch

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#2323211 23-Sep-2019 10:23

quickymart:

How about The Xtra-Ordinaries? (note: I was working at Telecom at the time they came along).

How about the just the Launch of Xtra, the ISP that came with a hugely graphical ISP homepage, that took minutes to render on a slow connection....

A 28.8 modem was the most common dial up speed ( 56K had only been settled as a standard a year earlier)

dolsen

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#2323240 23-Sep-2019 10:58

wellygary:

How about the just the Launch of Xtra, the ISP that came with a hugely graphical ISP homepage, that took minutes to render on a slow connection....

A 28.8 modem was the most common dial up speed ( 56K had only been settled as a standard a year earlier)

Yeah - that was very bad. They also had passwords that were a simple transformation of the username with no ability to change them. It only took 2 or 3 username / password combos to know all the passwords.

I liked Ferrit. Telecom paid to transport a dryer from Auckland down to Wellington for me. Not sure how they were going to make money from that.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10551507

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#2323242 23-Sep-2019 11:01

@dolsen and Ferrit.com the porn site most people visited instead of .co.nz

allan

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#2323247 23-Sep-2019 11:07

In terms of a failure over an extended period of time, the Tivo launch must be right up there. Something that should have worked here, given its success overseas, but locking it into an ISP space only was never going to make it fly. By the time it was being sold at retail, it was way too late - and anyway people were still confused that it only worked if you were a Telecom/Spark customer.

old3eyes

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#2323251 23-Sep-2019 11:15

ajw:

Remember when they contracted Alcatel Lucent to build a GSM 850MHZ network and 2100MHZ for UMTS. Six months into the build they (Telecom) changed their minds and changed the specs to a fully dedicated 3G UMTS network using 850MHZ and 2100MHZ. what a cock up.

And also building a nationwide CDMA network when they should have used GSM tech.

Not really. A smart decision not to go with GSM and move from CDMA directly to 3G.

Regards,

Old3eyes

wellygary

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#2323256 23-Sep-2019 11:18

Linux:

@dolsen and Ferrit.com the porn site most people visited instead of .co.nz

Don't worry they were in Good company,

When the NZ Stock exchange rebranded, they selected abbreviation of "NZX" was at the time being used by Steve Crow as the title of a Porn Mag ( he had also snagged to NZ domain name too, ) The stock exchange had to 9 and still does) use .com

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ajw

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#2323270 23-Sep-2019 11:25

old3eyes:

ajw:

Remember when they contracted Alcatel Lucent to build a GSM 850MHZ network and 2100MHZ for UMTS. Six months into the build they (Telecom) changed their minds and changed the specs to a fully dedicated 3G UMTS network using 850MHZ and 2100MHZ. what a cock up.

And also building a nationwide CDMA network when they should have used GSM tech.

Not really. A smart decision not to go with GSM and move from CDMA directly to 3G.

Read what I said. They decided to go GSM first therefore wasting millions of dollars six months later changing the specs to UMTS.

wratterus

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#2323274 23-Sep-2019 11:33

Go Large or XT for sure.

Dairyxox

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#2323396 23-Sep-2019 14:44

What about the yahoo/mail fiasco?

Really just email in general since about hmm....2007?

matisyahu

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#2323552 23-Sep-2019 20:41

AKLGUY79:

Spark Sport or Telecom XT

Telecom launching the CDMA2000 network instead of going straight from analogue to GSM which resulted in the rushed and corner cutting deployment of the XT Network. As for Spark Sport - I'm happy that Spark is giving the market some much needed competition and I hope as their platform matures that it shapes up as a strong competitor to Sky given how Sky has taken advantage of inertia and lack of competition for far too long.

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

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#2323553 23-Sep-2019 20:46

I kinda want to include ADSL in the list, I'm pretty sure their entry level plan at the start only had a 400 meg data cap, uptake was so low they had to bring in Jetstart with a 128k speed limit.

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lxsw20

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#2323562 23-Sep-2019 21:29

Not a huge failure, but the find and replace that was done on the Telecom website to create the word Sparkmunications :)

quickymart

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#2323563 23-Sep-2019 21:30

matisyahu:

AKLGUY79:

Spark Sport or Telecom XT

Telecom launching the CDMA2000 network instead of going straight from analogue to GSM which resulted in the rushed and corner cutting deployment of the XT Network. As for Spark Sport - I'm happy that Spark is giving the market some much needed competition and I hope as their platform matures that it shapes up as a strong competitor to Sky given how Sky has taken advantage of inertia and lack of competition for far too long.

I remember seeing somewhere in Theresa Gattung's memoirs something along the lines of Telecom couldn't launch another GSM network in competition with Vodafone, as apparently the Government of the day wouldn't allow it, so they had to go with CDMA.

Speaking of Steve Crow, fairly sure I saw him in some biker outfit, shopping at Noel Leeming in Albany yesterday afternoon.

richms

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#2323571 23-Sep-2019 21:43

quickymart:

I remember seeing somewhere in Theresa Gattung's memoirs something along the lines of Telecom couldn't launch another GSM network in competition with Vodafone, as apparently the Government of the day wouldn't allow it, so they had to go with CDMA.

Mmmmm CDMA - from memory it had the worst voice quality of any phone I had ever used.

Richard rich.ms

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#2323574 23-Sep-2019 21:46

quickymart:

matisyahu:

AKLGUY79:

Spark Sport or Telecom XT

Telecom launching the CDMA2000 network instead of going straight from analogue to GSM which resulted in the rushed and corner cutting deployment of the XT Network. As for Spark Sport - I'm happy that Spark is giving the market some much needed competition and I hope as their platform matures that it shapes up as a strong competitor to Sky given how Sky has taken advantage of inertia and lack of competition for far too long.

I remember seeing somewhere in Theresa Gattung's memoirs something along the lines of Telecom couldn't launch another GSM network in competition with Vodafone, as apparently the Government of the day wouldn't allow it, so they had to go with CDMA.

Speaking of Steve Crow, fairly sure I saw him in some biker outfit, shopping at Noel Leeming in Albany yesterday afternoon.

@quickymart The issue was the 850Mhz they only had access to I am sure @sbiddle could confirm more around this

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