June 2009 launch for Telecom NZ’s new WCDMA network?
Rumours are currently flying around that Telecom New Zealand’s new WCDMA/UMTS network that is being deployed by Alcatel-Lucent currently won’t see a full launch end of this year, as was previously announced.
Instead, June 2009 is when it will go alive. The launch this year is only a “soft” one, internally.
Anyone else have more information?
August 13th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
If it’s true I think its a good thing in the long-run
A. If Telecom launched with only 3 cities they would wear the negative brand sentiment of poor coverage for much longer than the time it takes to fix it (think of the pain suffered by BellSouth when they undercooked their launch)
B. Gives time to fully deploy WCDMA 850 and for the handset ecosystem for 850 / 2100 devices to develop
Provides some short-term pain though with the need to source more CDMA handsets and a longer period for Vodafone to milk the iPhone. Net-net a good call if its true
A.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I was just reading an ABN-AMRO report that says the delays are mainly caused by trying to get Nortel 2.1GHz gear to cooperate with ALU 850MHz stuff.
Good post on the developments at Miki’s blog:
http://szikszai.blogspot.com/2008/08/telecom-850-wcdma-more-developments.html