What if Telecom had not changed?

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quickymart

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#115974 13-Apr-2013 21:10

Playing devil's advocate here (no, not the movie) to pass time on a quiet Saturday night.

If the Government had not sold Telecom in 1987 and retained ownership to this day, what kind of communications would NZ have? Would we still have expensive toll calls? Would we have any mobile network covering most of the population? Would ADSL exist?

Would there be any competition in telecommunications in NZ at all, or just the one provider, Telecom?

Or if Telecom had not been sold, would we have been better off?

Thoughts?

farcus

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#799005 14-Apr-2013 04:19

if it wasn't sold it would eventually have been set up as an SOE so things probably wouldn't have been too different.

old3eyes

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#799050 14-Apr-2013 09:00

It was sold in 1990 not 1987. Working for them at the time it was the best thing to happen.. Selling it or would not have made any difference to competition as that part was opened up in 1989..

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DarthKermit

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#799073 14-Apr-2013 10:04

I can't imagine how an old dinosaur department like the Post Office (phones, mail, banking) would have coped in the modern era of telecommunications without radical changes.

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nickb800

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#799087 14-Apr-2013 10:36

My guess is that Clear would have become a market leader (or at least a lot more dominant than they were), as the post shop would be too slow to innovate, especially to business needs

quickymart

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#799171 14-Apr-2013 14:52

Sorry, my dates are a bit off :( so you think everything would be exactly as it is now if Telecom had not changed hands and was either (a) a division of the Post Office or (b) was an SOE?

farcus

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#799178 14-Apr-2013 15:13

some of the most appalling behaviour from Telecom was in the late 1990s.
If Telecom was an SOE I don't think they would have got away with as much bad behaviour as they did - but National was in govt at the time so who really knows.

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boby55

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#799235 14-Apr-2013 18:02

I personally believe we would be not better of than we are today, if you look at how slow the power companies upgrade their infrastructure.

Yes they got away with some pretty dodgy behavior but I believe the only real change is we would of had a duopoly with clear rather than just telecom.

BarTender

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#799348 14-Apr-2013 22:08

I would put money on Southern Cross Cable wouldn't have been built. And what a different world that would be.