Is Telecom struggling to get customers onto XT?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Is Telecom struggling to get customers onto XT?

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ahmad

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#240935 31-Jul-2009 12:38

I would stick my neck out and say that the reason there is such a high TXT/Call imbalance is due to pricing imbalance.

ronindanbo

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#240938 31-Jul-2009 12:41

ahmad: I would stick my neck out and say that the reason there is such a high TXT/Call imbalance is due to pricing imbalance.

Funily no, it's really down to preferred method of communication. When someone does 100000 texts in a month even after they capped the amount you can have for $10 then price is no longer a factor.

Behodar

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#240953 31-Jul-2009 12:57

ronindanbo: I remember when Telecom bought in Push to Talk which was a disaster we had to give it away just to get people to use it

I've never even heard of it. I guess that proves your point :)

ronindanbo

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#240956 31-Jul-2009 13:01

Behodar:
ronindanbo: I remember when Telecom bought in Push to Talk which was a disaster we had to give it away just to get people to use it

I've never even heard of it. I guess that proves your point :)

lol yes one day some magic marketer decided it would be fun to by some technology from America where you could turn your cellphone into a walky talky.... go figure

richms

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#240964 31-Jul-2009 13:17

That got its big start on the iden network over there which was another dead end technology. Stuff all other handsets support it and to make it even more awesome there seems to be 2 incompatible standards which is why it never got anywhere except on nextel.

Richard rich.ms

sinner

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#240965 31-Jul-2009 13:19

ronindanbo:
Behodar:
ronindanbo: I remember when Telecom bought in Push to Talk which was a disaster we had to give it away just to get people to use it

I've never even heard of it. I guess that proves your point :)

lol yes one day some magic marketer decided it would be fun to by some technology from America where you could turn your cellphone into a walky talky.... go figure

Push to talk did have it's uses though. I think it would have been a really good feature for tradesmen. Problem is that I don't think marketing supported it all that well.
Also, with the customer base of NZ, it was always going to be hard to justify the expense of running the service compared to the amount of users that would take it up.

ronindanbo

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#240971 31-Jul-2009 13:23

sinner:
ronindanbo:
Behodar:
ronindanbo: I remember when Telecom bought in Push to Talk which was a disaster we had to give it away just to get people to use it

I've never even heard of it. I guess that proves your point :)

lol yes one day some magic marketer decided it would be fun to by some technology from America where you could turn your cellphone into a walky talky.... go figure

Push to talk did have it's uses though. I think it would have been a really good feature for tradesmen. Problem is that I don't think marketing supported it all that well.
Also, with the customer base of NZ, it was always going to be hard to justify the expense of running?the service compared to the amount of users that would take it up.

Not to mention the cost it took them to buy the licence for the technology.

ajobbins

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#240983 31-Jul-2009 14:02

I saw ALOT of IDEN use in LA when I was there Dec/Jan. Particualar in public transport, tours, couriers, emergency services etc.

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Handsomedan

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#240988 31-Jul-2009 14:19

America is a funny place.

Speak to an American and they'll tell you nobody in the world uses MMS. They'll also tell you EVERYONE emails from their phone. EVRYONE.

Funny folk, those yanks. ;)

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kaneroxs

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#241511 2-Aug-2009 18:22

They gave me a new simcard

exportgoldman

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#241544 2-Aug-2009 20:21

I would suspect, as the ones who really know arn't commenting :) that of the 100,000 new signups, a very large percentage will be new customers for Telecom.

Why not keep the existing customers on CDMA, which is a fine network BTW, (I would say it's still the second fastest network in NZ, but others would disagree.) Telecom continues to earn money on the CDMA customers and has to keep the network alive as all sorts of devices are plugged into it from telemetry data to burgler alarms etc.

When those contracts come up for renewal they will move them across.

What I suspect Telecom will be focusing on will be the new signups, to increase their total market share.

Now, I don't know how that Vodafone 9000 signups (or was it 7000) was, but I remember a article with the CEO saying they had to signup 25% their clientbase every 6 months to keep them on contract. I assume because thats how their system works, sign them up for 2 years, then resign.

If that is so, and that includes resigns, then that is a very very sick number. If it's not including resigns then it's not so bad.

The 2 Degree's 50,000 is a list of customers which want free stuff, as others have stated. I'm on it twice, and I'm not really looking to move, but wanted a test SIM to see what coverage is like. I suspect a lot of them are like that and their takeup rate could be as low as 25%-50% of those initial free SIM cards.

The one thing I can be confident in, is that Telecom under Paul Reynolds isn't going to walk away from a fight for market share. And Vodafone is one savvy operator. They may have a rubbish network now, but their profits from last quarter were over 700 Million dollars from memory, and XT only cost 500M to build.

Vodafone's network this time next year will be indistinguishable from it's network now. They have got signoffs to build out their network, and put some serious money into it. All the joys of competition.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

langi27

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#241843 3-Aug-2009 15:59

exportgoldman:
Why not keep the existing customers on CDMA, which is a fine network BTW.

When those contracts come up for renewal they will move them across.

What I suspect Telecom will be focusing on will be the new signups, to increase their total market share.

The one thing I can be confident in, is that Telecom under Paul Reynolds isn't going to walk away from a fight for market share. And Vodafone is one savvy operator. They may have a rubbish network now, but their profits from last quarter were over 700 Million dollars from memory, and XT only cost 500M to build.

Your comments bring up a very good point, and I'd like to say I'd be even more angry if I was a CDMA customer and not offered access to XT sooner rather than later. Regardless if I only made 1 voice call a day and had no interest in data.

This is exactly the same stupid mentality Telecom had when Telstra (Saturn or Telstraclear at the time) was rolling out their cable network here in Christchurch. The same week Telstra was available my Phone bill dropped $10 a month, I got a letter telling me "now that ther is some competition we would like to offer you a savings on your line rental". Which just happened to match the Telstra pricing.

This certainly is not a proactive way to keep an existing customer base. Why not offer the discount 6 months before and not the same damn week. Or in this case, a nice new free connection and some credit towards some free airtime, or a handset or whatever.

Telecom are playing the same stupid games again, they do not care about their existing customers and when the time finally comes (contract is due) they will lose them.

In my opinion Telecom are not doing enough to get customers onto XT, they are not proactive and they could be doing a lot more.

exportgoldman

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#241929 3-Aug-2009 18:23

langi27: Your comments bring up a very good point, and I'd like to say I'd be even more angry if I was a CDMA customer and not offered access to XT sooner rather than later. Regardless if I only made 1 voice call a day and had no interest in data.

To be honest, I don't think most Telecom customers care, geeks do and you can move to XT from CDMA if you want to, I'm sure Telecom would sort you out... But why bother moving a huge amount of people which generally are happy with their phones, from a network you are going to continue to support, and is a very robust network, to be honest, the people which end up staying on CDMA will find their data speeds going up as the network empties out.

langi27: This is exactly the same stupid mentality Telecom had when Telstra (Saturn or Telstraclear at the time) was rolling out their cable network here in Christchurch. The same week Telstra was available my Phone bill dropped $10 a month, I got a letter telling me "now that ther is some competition we would like to offer you a savings on your line rental". Which just happened to match the Telstra pricing.

You mean the 'loyalty' rewards, which the commerce commission ruled were NOT predatory pricing, even though they were matching suburb by suburb, street by street, house by house Telstra's pricing when those houses had cable run outside their front doors? Using their monopoly advantage in other areas to subsidise and undercut the competition in those areas, thus squeezing them out of the market.

Thats when Telstra gave up and stopped building a second network in New Zealand. Yeah, I think Telecom has grown up a lot since then, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth as well for years.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

timestyles

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#241941 3-Aug-2009 18:47

ahmad: I would stick my neck out and say that the reason there is such a high TXT/Call imbalance is due to pricing imbalance.

I'd say you're dead right, you can communicate with someone for 40c total cost, compared with a minimum of 90c. This is definitely the case in other countries such as Philippines, where people can't afford to phone, they just text.

timestyles

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#241943 3-Aug-2009 18:49

sinner:
ronindanbo:
Behodar:
ronindanbo: I remember when Telecom bought in Push to Talk which was a disaster we had to give it away just to get people to use it

I've never even heard of it. I guess that proves your point :)

lol yes one day some magic marketer decided it would be fun to by some technology from America where you could turn your cellphone into a walky talky.... go figure

Push to talk did have it's uses though. I think it would have been a really good feature for tradesmen. Problem is that I don't think marketing supported it all that well.

I recall the Push to talk advertising from Telecom basically consisted of children playing around with their phones. Great way to convince tradesmen to get it, I agree it would be quite useful for them.

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