Telecom NZ speediest for car association
The new XT mobile telephony and data network continues to lure corporate customers into the Telecom fold, away from Vodafone.
Latest amongst the defectors is the New Zealand Automobile Association that's has signed up for a three-year mobile deal with Telecom's ICT services arm, Gen-i. Included in the deal are 740 connections, a mix of phones and data connections, Gen-i spokeswoman Carmela Salisbury said today.
However, Salisbury declined to give a dollar amount on the contract value. AA chief information officer Doug Wilson pointed earlier to his company's close relationship with Gen-i as a crucial factor in the deal. Gen-i already supplies Telecom's One Office WAN service to the AA for the organisation's ninety sites nationwide.
Gen-i CEO Chris Quin celebrated the agreement as a new partnership that came about through collaboration and shared vision, and said he's pleased to have extended the ICT service provider's deal with the AA to include mobility solutions.
As part of the deal, Gen-i will work on converged solutions that will AA's existing applications being distributed to mobile devices for its field and branch office staffers.
Telecom moving away from the old CDMA network to a WCDMA one also helped to swing the deal. This made it possible for AA to send out its Traffic TXT Alert service messages via SMS instead of email economically to customers.
Salisbury said another factor that swayed the AA's decision was the nationwide support offered by Gen-i and Telecom. Employees of the motorists' organisation can obtain support for the XT devices through Telecom Retail, by going into any of its partner Leading Edge stores around the country, Salisbury said.
With 156 outlets and licensing agencies, plus six call centres, AA has 1,200 staff throughout New Zealand. The organisation has some 1.2 million members, representing the interests of New Zealand road users.
Other large companies that have moved to XT this year include nationwide real estate firm Harcourts, Radius Health Group, and New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra.