Bid to improve Cheh service

Press, 19 July 1989, Page 1

Bid to improve Cheh service

Telecom is still not fully satisfied with the rate of progress in improving its Christchurch service, but is trying to improve the situation, says the Telecom South chairman, Mr Jeff Carter. He was responding to the report of an incident where a failure of the Christchurch Central Exchange meant a Spreydon man was unable to obtain immediate help through dialling 111

while his wife was suffering a fatal heart attack. Mr Carter said Telecom took the provision of the 111 service “very seriously indeed." However, no system — computer or mechanical — could be fail-safe. A 99.99 per cent reliability had been achieved in Telecom exchanges and the corporation was working to improve that. Mr Carter said that at the time

of corporatisation Christchurch and most other New Zealand towns had a thoroughly unsatisfactory quality of telephone exchange. Telecom’s network and exchange improvement programmes had improved the situation throughout the country, but the problem still remained to some extent in Christchurch, he said.