As alluded to in previous posts, yesterday I spent the day in Auckland working with Telecom New Zealand on a couple of projects.
I’ve been quick to criticise TNZ in the past – the bursting bubble saga, the “they’d never be stupid enough to do that” fiasco, and the fact that they’re a huge incumbent that we all paid for doesn’t do much to make us love them but I was impressed by my day up there.
I can’t talk specifics of the project but suffice it to say that TNZ do understand the paradigm shift that is coming, both in enterprise generally and for Telco’s traditional revenue streams in particular. Sure they haven’t rolled out nationwide VoIP or fibre to every home, but they are making progress on bringing the business into line with where it needs to be going into the future.
One of the major problems for Telecom, as with most Telco’s is their insularity – part of the benefit of my time there was to break some of those barriers down and open the lines of communication so they can really understand what makes the rest of us in New Zealand tick.
It’s a work in progress but don’t write them off just yet!
