New Look Telecom Offering Free 4g Upgrade from Mid November

MEDIA RELEASE

Monday 7 October, 2013

New Look Telecom Offering Free 4g Upgrade from Mid November

Telecom New Zealand announced today that its 4G network will launch on 12 November in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch – and will be available to both prepaid and pay-monthly customers at no additional cost on Telecom’s current plans.

The 4G plans were released on the same day that Telecom introduced a new-look retail brand, featuring the Telecom ‘spark’ in a range of new colours, in addition to the traditional blue.

Telecom Retail Chief Executive Chris Quin said “offering a free upgrade to 4G is yet another way that Telecom is transforming how people use their smartphones. Whether they are shopping online, streaming music, or making stutter-free video calls to family and friends, 4G will allow our customers to do a whole lot more, a whole lot faster on their mobile devices. It will also allow businesses to stimulate more efficient ways of working remotely with teams on the road able to make reliable video calls, download pictures and documents in seconds and use cloud services on their mobiles. 4G is part of our vision to help Kiwis have experiences that once seemed impossible.”

Mr Quin said Telecom has listened to customer concerns about using up their mobile data on the faster 4G network.

“We want to encourage our customers to use their data freely on 4G, to truly explore and experience what the network has to offer them, so to give them more peace of mind we’ve launched our new Ultra Mobile ‘4G-ready’ plans, which include higher data caps. Telecom’s rapidly-expanding WiFi network – which we recently announced will be a free add-on for our pay-monthly and prepaid pack mobile customers - will also allow them to stay connected while saving their precious data for when they really need it.”

To access 4G, customers will need to be in a coverage area, to own a 4G-capable phone that has been enabled to work on the Telecom mobile network, and to upgrade to a 4G SIM card. Most higher-end mobile devices introduced over the past year or so are 4G-capable and more devices will be launched in coming weeks.

Mr Quin said that it was no coincidence that the new Telecom retail brand was launching on the same day that the company announced its vision for a greatly enhanced mobile network, incorporating 4G technology, new mobile offerings and Telecom’s national WiFi network.

“We’ve made these exciting new products available to our customers during a year in which Telecom has undergone tremendous change - reinventing its offering to both mobile and fixed customers, with the introduction of exciting new technologies and high value, very competitive plans.

“Our brand refresh is about far more than a colour change. It’s about bringing a completely new tone to how we communicate with and what we offer our customers. We want to inspire them to get off the sideline and join in; to give them the confidence and ability to do more with technology - to use it, to discover, create and play through it.

“We wanted to deliver new things before changing the label, and so we have transformed the network experience we’re offering both our mobile and our fixed customers. That’s something we’re very proud of and so we think we’ve earned the right to change our brand, to reflect the exciting future we see ahead of us – a future that we want all Kiwis to be a part of.”

Telecom’s Chief Operating Officer David Havercroft said 4G services will use LTE technology over the 1800MHz spectrum band.

“The network build has progressed extremely well, with promising results from testing and excellent collaboration between vendors Huawei, Cisco and Ericsson, in conjunction with existing 3G network technology provider Alcatel-Lucent

“Telecom’s decision to make its 4G network freely available to all of its customers is another significant step towards providing an integrated network of fibre, 3G, 4G and WiFi that will deliver the rich, relevant, real-time experiences and instant access to information today’s consumers and businesses increasingly expect,” Mr Havercroft said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media