Website rallies anti-Telecom views

By RICHARD WOOD

A website has sprung up to coordinate dissent over Telecom New Zealand business practices.

Called "TeleCon" and subtitled "Taking a stand", the site describes Telecom's business practices as "substandard" and provides articles and forums for discussion.

Telecom spokesman John Goulter said sites such as TeleCon were common internationally and to be expected.

He said Telecom was always interested in customer views and feedback but there didn't appear to be names on the site - "so it is hard to see who it is coming from".

In a statement a person named "Des Clayton" is quoted, but an email to the listed address drew no response before the Herald's deadline.

The phone number used to register the website in August does not connect and a query to the site's email was also not answered by deadline.

The opening article takes issue with Telecom's new broadband plans when compared to statements made earlier about those plans by Telecom chief operating officer Simon Moutter.

The article said Telecom had not delivered competitive pricing or differentiated its pricing for cheaper local content.

Goulter said the retail JetStream packages being talked about were not released yet and it was not possible to know what the final shape of them would be.

Other articles question whether Telecom's advertising of JetStream is misleading, compare Telecom pricing internationally, cost out bandwidth supplied by the Southern Cross Cable and question Telecom's customer research.

The forums generally attack Telecom, with one contributor regularly signing out with the line "Telecom they come and they kick my dog". In one forum, picketing of Telecom offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch is called for.

However another contributor describes some of the contributions as ignorant and damaging to the credibility of the site.

Goulter said Telecom did not intend to take a heavy handed approach to TeleCon.

"It's just some people's views. We would watch it and if they crossed the line we would take whatever action was warranted."

Elsewhere on the web an online petition, launched on Monday last week asking Telecom to provide a cheaper fast internet service with "true" broadband speeds, has increased from 2772 after three days to 3919 by mid-afternoon yesterday.