Groucho:

 

Like how Telecom stubbornly insisted on an analogue mobile network despite their only local competitor Bell South (and the rest of the world) was digital?  'You need to roam overseas?  Sure, here's a totally different handset and something called a "SIM card" that will never catch on'.

 

If you mean DAMPS - that was not their fault, there was no GSM 850 at the time since that was a USA/AU/NZ only band for analog, so they only had the choice of gear for the mess that was the USA at the time to replace the analog network with that would run alongside it. Govt said no to them having some 900MHz to go GSM. Silly Govt crippled them with DAMPS and then CDMA networks because of the band plan.

PolicyGuy:

This was all a Non-Tariff Trade Barrier to keep the Plessey phone factory (in Porirua IIRC) in business.
NZ phone dials were exactly backwards to the UK ones, so you needed 'special' equipment to make them, and it wasn't worth the while for large overseas manufacturers to interrupt their 'normal' production to make what would be a tiny quantity by their standards of special NZ market phones. 

richms:

 

Groucho:

 

Like how Telecom stubbornly insisted on an analogue mobile network despite their only local competitor Bell South (and the rest of the world) was digital?  'You need to roam overseas?  Sure, here's a totally different handset and something called a "SIM card" that will never catch on'.

 

 

If you mean DAMPS - that was not their fault, there was no GSM 850 at the time since that was a USA/AU/NZ only band for analog, so they only had the choice of gear for the mess that was the USA at the time to replace the analog network with that would run alongside it. Govt said no to them having some 900MHz to go GSM. Silly Govt crippled them with DAMPS and then CDMA networks because of the band plan.

 

Wow, the good old DAMPS, and then CDMA, I remember those days!

That reminds me why many migrants coming to NZ in the 90's and early 2000s have 021 numbers.  Many of them brought their GSM phones with them.  And since there was only one GSM carrier back then, they all sign up to Bellsouth and later Vodafone.

Do any of the Wifi equipped Payphones still work? Ones I've been near of late are all dead

Even if I had need for a payphone, it would be useless to me. I wouldn't know how to call anyone unless I had my phone with me containing my contacts. I don't even know my wife's phone number.

richms:

 

If you mean DAMPS - that was not their fault, there was no GSM 850 at the time since that was a USA/AU/NZ only band for analog, so they only had the choice of gear for the mess that was the USA at the time to replace the analog network with that would run alongside it. Govt said no to them having some 900MHz to go GSM. Silly Govt crippled them with DAMPS and then CDMA networks because of the band plan.

 

They won the rights to some 900 MHz spectrum in the early 90's though so they could have gone with GSM. They ended up returning their rights (following a court case where Telstra sued the NZ Government) and eventually those rights went to Telstra who then sold them on to Vodafone.

Groucho:

 

When they moved into their house in the early 1970s they had to wait six months until another subscriber literally died and freed up a line to get a phone connected.

 

Isn't that how it was with some internet connections (think it was ADSL) until there was space in the cabinet?

PolicyGuy:

 

This was all a Non-Tariff Trade Barrier to keep the Plessey phone factory (in Porirua IIRC) in business.
NZ phone dials were exactly backwards to the UK ones, so you needed 'special' equipment to make them, and it wasn't worth the while for large overseas manufacturers to interrupt their 'normal' production to make what would be a tiny quantity by their standards of special NZ market phones. 

 

It's also the reason we dial "111" to get emergency services, while they call "999" in the UK - it's the same pulse pattern, so that while the handset was "NZ special", the exchange equipment was "UK Standard"

 

Remember that this was in the 'good old days' where all telephones were black, had a rotating dial, and were supplied only by the Post Office and only on rental. You could not buy a phone from anyone, and having more than one in a home was extremely unusual. Phones could only legally be installed by a Post Office Telephones Technician, and getting one installed took weeks or months. Even getting an installed but disconnected phone re-activated would usually take a few weeks.
😬

 

Some OWT's here.

The dials were exactly the same except for the numbering plate. Nothing special or difficult or different so far as the dial mechanism was concerned. It had exactly nothing to do with trade barriers.

All phones weren't black either though pretty well most of the old HB series (GPO 300 type) were black, there were other colours like red, green and white. The more modern 100 type came in many colours.

The Post Office Telephone Technician didn't go around installing phones. The Telephone Technician was the guy/gal keeping the telephone exchange switching equipment working. I wus won.

Perhaps in some places there were delays but where I worked an in place reconnection took from a matter of hours to two or three days, very very rarely was it any more than that and I suspect it wasn't much different in most places.