Kerre Woodham: Trying times for Telecom

Paul Reynolds. Photo / Dean Purcell

Speaking of chief executives, Paul Reynolds is having the annus horribilus to beat all anni, isn't he?

First the much-vaunted and heavily-advertised XT network has turned out to be beset with problems - four outages in the space of two months.

Now there's been a failure with the 111 system, resulting in about a third of emergency calls being unable to be connected over a two-hour period in the early hours of Friday morning.

I know there were howls and shrieks about Reynolds' salary last year. People were outraged that one man could be paid $5 million in salary and perks - not that it was anyone's business.

Telecom is not a state-owned enterprise and Reynolds is not a publicly elected official.

I said at the time that even if I had the talents and qualifications for the job, I wouldn't do it and I believe that more than ever after the first few months of Telecom's year.