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Thread ID: 143576	2017-02-16 17:28:00	Spark must be stopped	Digby (677)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1431957	2017-02-17 21:33:00	I am very concerned and annoyed about Spark/Chorus for three reasons. They are now (2017) saying they are not making enough money having to compete with low cost fibre offerings. I can understand why they would be concerned, after all they only make $1 million a day - and the government sold Telecom to the Americans! Crazy.	Roscoe (6288)
1431958	2017-02-18 22:33:00	I can understand why they would be concerned, after all they only make $1 million a day - and the government sold Telecom to the Americans! Crazy. But...the Govt receives millions in development levies, (billbennett.co.nz) funds, taxes, or whatever from Spark and other telco's...for doing nothing really. Easier to take, than to own and try profit in a large telco infrastructure. Money gained could be easily cost absorbed if they still owned Spark. Let Telecom Go, may have been the wiser business choice.	kahawai chaser (3545)
1431959	2017-02-19 18:20:00	I am very concerned and annoyed about Spark/Chorus for three reasons. One They were given the bulk of the UFB roll out. They were offered special concessions on price etc for this. They are now (2017) saying they are not making enough money having to compete with low cost fibre offerings. They are wanting to buy some of the other current UFB companies in Wellington etc. If we are not careful they will end up the only UFB / telco in New Zealand. I am also annoyed that so many people stick with them, even while they complain about their bad service! Let's straighten up the facts here: Telecom was structurally separated into Chorus (wholesale) and what is now Spark (retail) about 6 years ago to ensure it could not become 'the only telco in NZ'. They are separate organisations. Chorus tendered for and won the largest chunk of the UFB1 build (and UFB2 now as well). Nothing to do with Spark. The other UFB wholesalers from the Govt UFB programme are Enable, Ultrafast fibre and Northpower. Yes, Spark is making a bid for Team Talk. Team Talk is not a 'UFB' company. It owns 'private' city fibre. Spark has mentioned in the past that it is seeking to invest into infrastructure so that it can own the customer experience for enterprise customers across both the infrastructure and retail sides of things, so this investment fits with that strategy.	CaptainSandwich (17526)
1431960	2017-02-19 21:03:00	I can understand why they would be concerned, after all they only make $1 million a day - and the government sold Telecom to the Americans! Crazy. If the govt had kept it, it would still be running at a loss. :) There would be no competition or split off (as govts generally didnt want competition for their assets) It would be overstaffed & badly run. Remember party lines, in 1970,80's AK, because govt owned Telecom wouldnt spend the money to modernise/upgrade ? Remember waiting lists to get a phone line, in 1970,80's AK ? Remember the obscenely high cost of toll calls. Remember it being a toll call to the other side of Ak fringes	1101 (13337)
1431961	2017-02-19 23:12:00	If the govt had kept it, it would still be running at a loss. :) There would be no competition or split off (as govts generally didnt want competition for their assets) It would be overstaffed & badly run. Remember party lines, in 1970,80's AK, because govt owned Telecom wouldnt spend the money to modernise/upgrade ? Remember waiting lists to get a phone line, in 1970,80's AK ? Remember the obscenely high cost of toll calls. Remember it being a toll call to the other side of Ak fringes Doesn't gell with my memory of the post office at all. The current Telephone network was built by the government owned post office/ Telecom at a cost of several billion dollars. At the time it was a cutting edge digital exchange that put us ahead of most of the world. They installed it as a continuous project and replaced all of the major exchanges by the time they were finished. No commercial company would spend that kind of money and hurt their return that badly for several years in a row because they have shareholders to deal with. As a government operation they built the network for the customers, not for profit. On top of all that I'm pretty sure in the middle of all that spending with an admittedly overstaffed and old fashioned operation they still posted profits of around 200 million in their worst year. I never thought it made sense to sell it when they had just upgraded the whole network, a lot of Telecoms early success and profit growth was due to the fact they didn't need to spend any money on the exchanges, in fact 2 decades past their expected lifespan they are all still running and providing us with a phone service thanks not to telecom/spark but rather thanks to the old government run telecom that was. Think about this, with all these years since the network was privatised no one has even tried to compete with the landline network or the copper cable network. Instead they have cherry picked the most profitable returns for the least investment such as the mobile network or leased services piggybacking on the existing network. Not until technology made it easier and the government injected more money again did we start to see a fibre network built and voice services that compete by using VOIP rather than a POTs network. It's just not an attractive idea for anyone to duplicate the network in NZ and really compete, the country is too small and too geographically challenging to make it worthwhile. The only reason we get competition at all is because all the ISPs can lease the same lines at a common rate from the same provider, think about that. Honestly I think what should have happened is the government should have at least kept ownership of the cables in the ground and only sold off the part of the network that is now owned by spark, a lot of people were pushing for it at the time and with good reason.	dugimodo (138)
1431962	2017-02-19 23:44:00	I was in the Post Office Telecom in those days and spent 5 years in Telecom head office from 1973 to 1975. It was exactly as 1101 said. The guys I worked with were robbing Peter to pay Paul in the exchange upgrade program as each member of parliament tried to outdo the other for an upgrade before the next election. How treasury stopped expansion of the street cable networks and force party lines on people. How we were limited to crappy British telephone gear and phones. I saw some great stuff from the US and Europe while I was there but as they didn't buy any butter or lamb so we couldn't buy it. The best thing that happened to the telecom industry here was deregulation and sell off.	paulw (1826)
1431963	2017-02-19 23:59:00	Yes I used to hate Telecom with a vengeance. That fat cat CEO being overpaid to run a monopoly! High prices Poor and late technology. Millions going overseas each year. But I am talking Chorus now, wanting to buy up more of their opposition. I still say that they were granted favoruable terms to get the lions share. This was AFTER some of the other UFB companies had bid for their areas. We heard lots of horror stories with Chorus installations. I don't recall complaints about the the other UFB's	Digby (677)
1431964	2017-02-20 01:40:00	You think you could run them better Digby? There is a lot of complication with some Fibre installs. Not saying Chorus are perfect, but I reckon on the whole they do a pretty good job... And when you stop them, then what?	wratterus (105)
1431965	2017-02-20 02:14:00	If the govt had kept it, it would still be running at a loss. :) It would be overstaffed & badly run. Remember party lines, in 1970,80's AK, because govt owned Telecom wouldnt spend the money to modernise/upgrade ? Remember waiting lists to get a phone line, in 1970,80's AK ? No. What party lines? Waiting lists, no, don't remember that either. Not even in the '60s. Funny how it's so great now, so why is everyone always moaning about then=m now then?	pctek (84)
1431966	2017-02-20 02:48:00	Sorry Paulw but the 70's are not what I was talking about our current Japanese exchanges were built by the government in the 80's, things change. I joined the post office in 1985 just before it became Telecom and have not seen anything improve due to deregulation since. I'm not denying there were issues or that it was overstaffed and poorly run but it did make a profit and it did build a world class (at the time) network. Also break out the Abacus, you spent 5 years from 1973 to 1975? They have a tardis in the post office back then?	dugimodo (138)
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