From the New Zealand Herald January 26, 2010:

At the peak of the power cut, more than 50,000 homes in the city were without power and traffic ground to a halt, rail services were delayed and some businesses were forced to close.

And

Aucklanders had no disruption to hot water this morning after lines company Vector warned of possible hot water cuts.

Oh, the irony. This Friday will see the deadline for company’s wanting a slice of the action in New Zealand proposed government subsidised ultrafast broadband network project. Taxpayers will be stumping up NZ$1.5 to build a fibre network.

It’s ironic, because Vector is one of the companies expected to bid for this 21st century infrastructure project. And yet yesterday, Auckland, the nation’s largest city and commercial powerhouse was dark after the third major power outage in the last five years.

The lights and power were off from around 4pm to 8pm. Thankfully it’s summer, so the consequences aren’t quite as drastic as in earlier outages. There’s daylight until 8:30 pm, heating isn’t necessary, schools are closed and many workers are still on holiday.

But nevertheless, there was traffic chaos and companies had to send staff home – yet another unproductive day thanks to a third world infrastructure. Many believe the problems stem from earlier industry ‘reforms’ and deregulation.

And here’s the biggest irony of them all. New Zealand’s government wants lines companies and others to help build a world-class internet that should already be in place. The only reason it isn’t is because of historic regulatory failure in the telecommunications industry. But the likely winners of contracts to build the next generation internet are companies that wax fat and lazy as a result of regulatory failure in the electricity industry.

You may be interested to read my earlier post about the urgent need to fix Auckland’s power problems.

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When they want to create something that looks like a grass roots campaign, but isn’t, big companies often turn to a strategy known as astroturfing. The Drop the Rate campaign that began yesterday with support from Consumer, Tuanz and 2degrees is a classic example.

At first sight it’s aims are laudable. Lord knows New Zealanders pay way over the odds for mobile phone services. Ostensibly the campaign aims to put pressure on Vodafone and Telecom to cut the mobile termination rate or MTR. This is the amount one phone company has to pay another when customers call between networks.

There’s no question New Zealand’s MTRs are high by international standards. That’s only part of the reason why mobile phones are far more expensive to run here than in Australia – or just about anywhere else. It’s also a major brake on the economy – calls that could be made, possibly should be made, are going unmade because of the high costs involved.

Yet despite it being worthy in principle, there’s something phony (or should that be phoney?) about the Drop the Rate campaign.

For a start, there’s an expensive PR company behind it.

Who is paying Matthew Hooton’s fee? Good on him for getting the job, but you can bet your bottom dollar Exceltium isn’t collecting money from cake stands and sausage sizzles for this work.

Second, 2degrees doesn’t want to talk about the MTRs it pays to Vodafone and Telecom and has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure grass roots, that’s real grass, not astroturf, New Zealanders don’t get to know the rate.

Of course no-one can blame 2degrees for taking part in this kind of stunt. Telecom and Vodafone play hardball. And both can be less than snow-white in their marketing and political lobbying.

Campaign gets wide media coverage

Hooton certainly proved his PR skills. The Kiwi specialist press was full of the story. At The National Business Review Chris Keall expressed some weariness about the campaign in 2degrees again a little sneaky on MTRs at the National Business Review. The story got a good run in the New Zealand Herald and the Dominion Post.

At Computerworld Rob O’Neill seems more willing to take the campaign at face value. His Drop the rate mate’ campaign targets MTRs offers no comment. Paul Clearwater at The Line reports that Vodafone disputes the information on the campaign’s web site in ‘Drop the rate mate’ campaign begins. Telecommunications Review has a couple of stories on the campaign. The un-bylined Public campaign to lower Mobile Termination Rates is little more than an announcement while Sarah Putt’s “Rates are already falling mate” – Telecom gives the main telecommunication carrier’s dismissive response.

Update: Computerworld reports on Hooton’s attack on Telecom and Vodafone in Mobile termination row goes nuclear. The story finishes;

Hooton has words for Telecom, too, as the MTR debate goes white hot.
“Telecom now seems to be saying that it needs to rip off mobile consumers in order to fund more investment in the industry,” he said. “Good luck to Telecom arguing that a cosy duopoly leads to more investment in services and coverage than a more competitive environment.”

My opinion: Hooton proves he is a worthy campaigner against the arrogance of Telecom and Vodafone – clearly he was the right man for the campaign. Despite this, I’m still not comfortable with the astroturfing.