Telecom XT announcement regarding compensation for outage 2010 01 27

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom XT announcement regarding compensation for outage 2010 01 27

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16 posts

Geek

#295415 2-Feb-2010 15:26

NonprayingMantis:
ejrg: I'm a post paid retail customer on the $14.95 per month plan - according to my calculations I'll get $3.75 - I'd get a better credit if I was a prepay, but an infrequent user - this sucks big time ...... I have the same level of outage as a prepay customer, yet I get less compensation. Guess it shows who Telecom value.

so that means you will get 1 week's credit? ($14.95/4 ~ $3.75)
If I read the OP correctly, that means you are in the group who only lost service for a few hours (as oppoosed to the group who lost it for several days)- around 5 if I recall correctly.

So to compensate your for 5 hours of downtime, you are being given credit for 168 hours (1 week)

doesn't seem too unreasonable to me if you look at it that way.

Yes, yet prepay customers get a $10 credit. I have
to pay whether I use the service or not, prepay pay only if they use the
service. Same loss of service yet different, level of compensation.

xpd

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#295418 2-Feb-2010 15:33

NonprayingMantis:
xpd: Umm... anyone else notice one situation they havent covered ? (In that article at least)

Whats going to happen to those who are registered as Auckland XT users but were in the South Island over that time ?
Quite a lot of our company phones are registered to head office here in Auckland but the staff are based in the South Island..............

I imagine that since it is impossible to tell who was down there and who wasn’t (cpos the cell cites were down), the easiest way to do it would be on a case by case basis.

In your case, if your business is based in Auckland, but you have offices in Taupo, then call up your account manager and explain. I doubt they are going to argue too much.

We'll wait till the end of the week and see if anyone gets the txt...if not we'll go say hello to our account manager ;)

I can see Telecom are going to be very busy trying to sort out who should get compo or not...

XPD / Gavin

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Fo0L

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#295420 2-Feb-2010 15:42

a nice take on the whole compensation discussion... http://www.geekzone.co.nz/nate/7024

NonprayingMantis

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#295423 2-Feb-2010 15:46

responding to ejrg

well I guess that is because it is impossible to apply a fair credit to prepay users because there is no usage pattern to gauge their spend by.

Quite a few prepay users (particularly data users or people who have my favourites etc) would spend a lot more than $40 a month - to them a $10 credit is worth less than a week (so you did better than them on that basis). OTOH you also have little old ladies who spend next to nothing, only topping up occaisionally to ensure their account doens't expire. to them a $10 credit is worth several months usage - and you did 'worse' than them.

deciding how much to credit prepay users fairly to ensure they got 'a weeks usage' would be a billing systems nightmare I imagine - and probably generate umpteem calls into the call centre because their friend got $3.50 and they only got $2.
A $10 accross the board credit ensures that the vast majority of users get a reasonable amount of credit. Yes, low users will get more than their 'fair share' when maybe 1 week is only 'worth' $2, but high users won't be left feeling insulted by a $2 credit.

OTOH, a postpay user's usage can be relatively easily determined by what plan they are on. giving everyone a week's credit ensures that the credit is evenly split over users in accordance with their usage patterns.
People on the cheaper plans get a small amount, because the outage has only cost them a small amount. People on higher plans get more, because the outage cost them more. Businesses get even more because the cot to a business of an outage is typically a lto more than to a normal person.

It's never going to be 100% fair - and you will always get people who feel hard done by and moan about someone else getting $6 more than them.
But try and remember this. The important thing should not be whether someone else did better out of it than you, that just smacks of petty jealousy.

The important thing is do you feel adequately compensated for your loss?

Is 168 hours credit a fair compensation to you for 5ish hours of downtime?

As someone said (I think JFK)
"you can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"

GJB21

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Master Geek

#295437 2-Feb-2010 16:10

Good to see some compensation that's a bit more meaningful than the December peanuts

But where's the detail on the open "independent review"?

Beware that this is not a smokescreen behind which the review will be quietly swept.

BiggusDoggus

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#295461 2-Feb-2010 17:08

I always find it fascinating how GeekZone contributors are generally reasonable and objective, as opposed to Stuff: http://www.stuff.co.nz/busines...

My favourite - "Screw Telecom - they are a corporation that has never cared for anyone but thier owns profits - always jiping the little man - Switch to Vodafone - they never have a problem!"

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries

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#295462 2-Feb-2010 17:10

thats because people who read stuff are more of the common folk where GZ readers are abit more educated :)

ejrg

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Geek

#295465 2-Feb-2010 17:19

l43a2: thats because people who read stuff are more of the common folk where GZ readers are abit more educated :)

Eh??

kiwiscoota

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#295468 2-Feb-2010 17:24

I'm sure there will be some that are satisfied with Telecoms' offer of compensation and in my case as a Vodafone user, I was not greatly inconvenienced, BUT I was inconvenienced and did waste valuable business time trying to contact clients on the XT network.

Of course I'm not seeking compensation, but I do feel the compensation is inadequate for XT business users as it fails to properly take into account the real losses such an outage causes.

For a corporation the size of Telecom, $5 million compensation might seem generous, but I do not think the compensation comes close to addressing the valid complaints of XT users.

EDIT
Postscript Comment:
Of course it should go without saying any business that relies 100% on XT, Vodafone, 2Degrees etc is asking for disaster, any properly run business should have backup systems in place. Generators, alternative communications, data backup etc etc.

BiggusDoggus

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#295470 2-Feb-2010 17:32

kiwiscoota: I'm sure there will be some that are satisfied with Telecoms' offer of compensation and in my case as a Vodafone user, I was not greatly inconvenienced, BUT I was inconvenienced and did waste valuable business time trying to contact clients on the XT network.

Of course I'm not seeking compensation, but I do feel the compensation is inadequate for XT business users as it fails to properly take into account the real losses such an outage causes.

For a corporation the size of Telecom, $5 million compensation might seem generous, but I do not think the compensation comes close to addressing the valid complaints of XT users.

So as a matter of interest, what would you have considered to be an acceptable level of compensation, taking into account that Telecom was not actually obliged to pay any compensation at all, the fact that $5 million is actually a substantial amount when last year's profit was taken into account, and the fact that Transpower has straight out refused to give any compensation at all for the power outage?

I'm not saying that there are not a number of businesses who are seriously out of pocket (the fact they had no "plan B" aside). I just think there needs be some perspective and precedents taken into account.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries

kiwiscoota

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#295478 2-Feb-2010 17:47

BiggusDoggus:

So as a matter of interest, what would you have considered to be an acceptable level of compensation, taking into account that Telecom was not actually obliged to pay any compensation at all, the fact that $5 million is actually a substantial amount when last year's profit was taken into account, and the fact that Transpower has straight out refused to give any compensation at all for the power outage?

I'm not saying that there are not a number of businesses who are seriously out of pocket (the fact they had no "plan B" aside). I just think there needs be some perspective and precedents taken into account.

As I recall when being compensated in Australia for outages on Optus & Telstra services, for a 2 day outage I think I received the equivalent of a "free month".

Telecoms reported profit for the 2008/09 year was $498 million, it would have been much higher except for the accelerated depreciation of the outgoing mobile network and the declining revenue of it's AAPT division, so $5 million being offered only represents 1% of their net profit for the preceding financial year.

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Ashka

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Master Geek

#295490 2-Feb-2010 18:31

The major problem about the compensation is that it's for a broken Mobile service.
People buy it because, guess what, they are mobile.
Purchased anywhere in New Zealand and used anywhere in New Zealand.
Compensation paid out for where one purchased the plan rather than where one used or couldn't use the service is unfair.

Yes I use XT Mobile for my only internet access, North Island & South Island.

MacBook Pro ~ OSX 10.7. Lion ~ XT 3G iPad 2 ~ XT
Vodafone & CDMA mobile phones.

Basekid

70 posts

Master Geek

#295495 2-Feb-2010 18:48

I am very happy with this. Roughly lost 2 days, but getting almost a month of money back ($20)

http://spiegelei.myminicity.com/

l43a2

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#295508 2-Feb-2010 19:38

Ashka: The major problem about the compensation is that it's for a broken Mobile service.
People buy it because, guess what, they are mobile.
Purchased anywhere in New Zealand and used anywhere in New Zealand.
Compensation paid out for where one purchased the plan rather than where one used or couldn't use the service is unfair.

Yes I use XT Mobile for my only internet access, North Island & South Island.

if you were affected call telecom.

nzbnw

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#295519 2-Feb-2010 20:00

l43a2:
Ashka: The major problem about the compensation is that it's for a broken Mobile service.
People buy it because, guess what, they are mobile.
Purchased anywhere in New Zealand and used anywhere in New Zealand.
Compensation paid out for where one purchased the plan rather than where one used or couldn't use the service is unfair.

Yes I use XT Mobile for my only internet access, North Island & South Island.

if you were affected call telecom.

No need to, credits are automatic.

nzbnw

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