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Unfortunately, no matter how hard I scratch my head and shuffle through my notes, I can't find anything positive to say -- and that annoys me.

Theresa's gang can't be all bad, can they?

Surely much of the criticism they receive is simply a case of tall-poppy syndrome and a culture of Telecom-bashing that has become fashionable in the IT and communications industries?

Well I'm afraid not. If recent events are anything to go by, Telecom deserves every brickbat they get.

Adam Gifford pipped me at the post with this story in today's NZ Herald.

Yes, it seems that if your a dominant ISP in a market where you have a monopoly on the local loop, you don't need to bother wasting money on keeping your customers happy -- after all, if they're on a DSL connection where else can they go??

While it's fair and reasonable that Telecom doesn't provide guarantees that email will "get through", surely it's fair to expect that there won't be huge delays that affect the delivery of messages for as long as a week?

And here's another bone I have to pick with Telecom...

As some people will have noticed, Telecom now charges a "late fee" on accounts that aren't paid by the due date.

It's not a whole lot of money, just $5 or $6 I believe -- but multiply this amount by (say) 100,000 late-payers and you can see that it's quite a nice little revenue earner that almost certainly brings in several million dollars a year in extra revenue.

Now you, as I did, are probably thinking to yourself "hey, that's reasonable, Telecom is not a bank and the cost of credit associated with overdue accounts can be quite significant."

Well go take a very careful look at your latest phone bill and tell me if you still feel the same way.

Note how the fixed portion of that bill (line rental, wiring maintenance, under-cap DSL charges, etc) are all charged in *advance*.

That's right -- you are lending Telecom money every month!

So how can they charge a "late fee" for not lending them that money?

Do you really think they'll still be doing this when the local loop is unbundled, as it inevitably will be?

Sorry Telecom, despite much trying, I still can't find a nice thing to say about you.

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