Telecom New Zealand

By CIO New Zealand staff | Monday, January 11 2010

Telecom New Zealand’s biggest business challenge next year will be finalising the legally-mandated operational separation into three business units, a costly and complex exercise, while staving off the demands for structural separation.

HQ: Auckland
Website: www.telecom.co.nz
Global leader: Paul Reynolds, CEO
Core activity: Telecommunications and ICT services
Revenue: NZ$5.58 billion (FY09 ended June)
Key customers: Vodafone, TelstraClear, Orcon and Gen-i
Employees: 8535 including Gen-i and AAPT

Telecom New Zealand’s biggest business challenge next year will be finalising the legally-mandated operational separation into three business units, a costly and complex exercise, while staving off the demands for structural separation. Growth areas will be limited to mobile and IT services for the incumbent, as voice and broadband revenues come under pressure. Telecom is currently investing $3 million a day to transform New Zealand’s communications infrastructure, meaning over 900,000 copper lines can now reach ADSL2+ speeds of 24Mbit/s. The company has also commenced pilots of VDSL2 technology, with download speeds of up to 50Mbit/s.

It is also active in the ICT services market through subsidiary Gen-i (see page 43 for a profile of Gen-i) and in Australia through wholly-owned telco AAPT. This year Telecom launched its XT WCDMA mobile network with full voice and 3G data, to replace the existing CDMA network. While the technology projects and network expansion is underway, Telecom is implementing operational separation as required by the New Zealand government to ensure full equivalence of access to Telecom’s fixed-line infrastructure.