The story
The Postal Services Act 1987 split the then New Zealand Post Office into New Zealand Post Limited (trading as NZPost), Telecom Corporation of New Zealand Limited (trading as Telecom) and Post Office Bank Limited (trading as PostBank, sold to ANZ in 1989) and all three industries progressively deregulated. The selling price of Telecom was considered by some to be extremely low, given that Telecom had a monopoly of all phone lines in New Zealand at the time.
1990s
In 1990, Telecom was sold to two United States–based telecommunications companies, Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic) and Ameritech, for NZ$4.25 billion. After Telecom was privatized, the Kiwi Share agreement was drawn up, which included a provision that the company retained free local calling for residential customers.
In 1991, Telecom listed on the New Zealand, Australian and New York stock exchanges. The following year Telecom implemented a NZ$200 million fibre-optic cable connection between Australia and New Zealand. Also in 1991, Roderick Deane was appointed CEO of the company. Then in 1993 Ameritech and Bell Atlantic reduced their share in Telecom to a combined 49.6% and BellSouth New Zealand Limited (BellSouth), subsequently acquired by Vodafone, set up the first mobile network to compete with Telecom.
Clear Communications reached an agreement with Telecom in 1995 on local service interconnection. Also in 1995, Telecom created First Media Ltd to develop a cable television network across Auckland and Wellington, called First TV. In 1996 Telecom established a telephone exchange in the United States for international traffic, and launched Xtra.
1997 saw Telecom buy back NZ$1 billion of its shares. The following year, Ameritech sold down its 24.8% shareholding in an international public offering, and Bell Atlantic issued exchangeable notes that were convertible into the Telecom shares that it owned.
In December 1997 Patricia Reddy was appointed to the Telecom board. She remained on it until 2008. In September 2016 as Dame Patsy Reddy she became the Governor General of New Zealand.
In 1998, Southern Cross Cables Limited (half owned by Telecom) announced plans to build a fibre-optic cable linking New Zealand with Australia and North America.
Vodafone Group bought BellSouth and started a campaign to attract Telecom customers to its network.
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In 1999, Telecom established a presence in Australia, buying 78% of AAPT, Australia's third-largest telecommunications company. Telecom upgraded its nationwide payphone network to smart card technology. Telecom's broadband Internet service based on ADSL technology, called JetStream, was launched and rolled-out progressively in local exchanges. Also at this time, Telecom began charging customers who connected to the Internet using a local dial up number, forcing all ISPs in New Zealand to change to an 0867 dial up number. This resulted in complaints that this was in breach of Telecom's Kiwishare Agreement where residential customers are allowed free local calling. The decade was rounded off with Theresa Gattung being appointed new CEO of Telecom, with Rod Deane moving to the position of chairman.
2000s
In 2000, Xtra signed up its 300,000th customer. Telecom also raised its shareholding in AAPT to 100%.
Evidence emerged in early 2002 of Telecom having exploited an ill-considered, or fraudulently made to order, accounting standard (FRS38) to inflate its year 2001 reported profit by some $263 million. This standard required holding companies to incorporate profits and losses of associate companies into their group accounts by way of "equity accounting" except when the associate is insolvent. Being insolvent has been wrongly taken as substantial evidence that the holding company will no longer share in the associates profits and losses. The associate company Southern Cross Cables paid Telecom $263 million in dividends as per (note 2 of) Telecom's 2001 annual accounts, $US200m as per Southern Cross's annual accounts.
Southern Cross opened for (limited) business in November 2000 and its income from operations to 30 June 2001 was only $US13 million ($US55 million for the 2002 year). Southern Cross were insolvent to the extent of $US24 million as at 30 June 2000 and this increased to $US280 million as at June 2001 as a result of the dividends and other (net) expenses ($328 million in 2002). The dividends were treated as income in Telecom's accounts there being nothing in FRS 28 to say that they should not be although such inclusion did breach an overall requirement that the accounts present a fair view.
In 2003, a new logo was launched costing $140,000.
In 2004, Telecom purchased Gen-i Ltd (in May) and Computerland Ltd (in September). The company had 36 retail stores around the country. During the year, the company won the Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation operating in New Zealand.
In 2005, Telecom introduced "Bitstream", a 256 kbit ADSL service sold at wholesale prices (at approximately 10% below the retail price) to other ISPs. Telecom also posted a profit of NZ$916 million. The company also launched online retail store Ferrit launches with about 150 retailers.
2006
9 May: An audio clip recorded on 2 March was released involving Telecom CEO Theresa Gattung admitting the use of confusion as a chief marketing tool in the industry. The March recording also dismissed the New Zealand Government as "too smart to do anything dumb" with regards to regulation.
Late May: Deane resigned as chairman, and was replaced by Wayne Boyd the following month.
July: Matt Crockett was appointed CEO of Telecom's newly formed Wholesale division.
All Computerland branches around New Zealand were rebranded as Gen-i.
2007
16 January: The Librarians Association of New Zealand put in a complaint about a Telecom advertisement where three young school children said, "Only dumb kids read books, brainy kids have broadband." Originally Telecom said it was the view of the young children and not Telecom and the advertisement was unscripted, later Telecom chose to edit the advertisement to remove the comments.
19 January: It was reported that Paritai Drive, Ōrākei, one of the richest streets in Auckland, was still not capable of receiving a broadband SL service and there were many other well populated areas around New Zealand still not capable of receiving broadband. Opposition Woosh Wireless immediately tested its service in the area and gave residents the opportunity to join its wireless broadband service.
5 February: Telecom announced that from March 2007 it would begin rolling out ADSL2+, more than a year after the original roll out date.
31 March: Telecom shut down its old 025 D-AMPS/TDMA network with all 025 phones changed to 027 (CDMA).
May 2007: British Telecom had been in discussion with the New Zealand government regarding Telecom's monopoly control of the NZ broadband network. Three to four years previously, British Telecom was in a similar position to that of NZ Telecom; the British broadband network has since been broken up and the NZ government was keen to learn and possibly copy the development/regulatory/investment model used by the British firm.
The Auckland Chamber of Commerce publicly stated that if Telecom did not invest in a next-generation high-speed network, comparable with that of other Western nations, they would fund a private fibre-optic based service in the 100 megabit speed range. The proposed coverage of this would be within 200m of a path running south from Auckland CBD (situated to allow as many businesses as possible to connect). Any company or private individual within this range would be offered a connection.
28 June: Telecom announced that Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, has been selected as the new CEO, to start on 27 September. Simon Moutter was appointed as acting CEO in the interim.
30 June: Theresa Gattung steps down as CEO, with a reported leaving payment of $5.125 million.
27 September: Dr Paul Reynolds starts as CEO of Telecom.
In November 2007, the Boost Mobile brand was discontinued in New Zealand by Telecom.
21 November: Mark Ratcliffe, Chief Operating Officer for Technology, is appointed CEO of Telecom's soon-to-be spun off network division.
2008
16 January: Telecom announces the formation of Chorus, its new network infrastructure division.
31 March: Telecom officially separates into three divisions (Chorus, Telecom Wholesale, Telecom Retail)
1 April: Russ Houlden, a colleague of Reynolds at BT, is appointed Chief Financial Officer. He replaces Marko Bogoievski, who joined Infratil.
2009
12 January: Telecom announces the closure of its online retail store Ferrit.
August: An industrial dispute emerged between Chorus and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union after servicing contracts in the Auckland and Northland regions are awarded to Australian company Visionstream, which planned to change technicians' employment contracts to a dependent contractor model.
In October a new logo was announced.
2010s
2010
November: Telecom moves into its newly built world HQ on Victoria St in the Auckland CBD. Costing the developer $280 million, it will consist of 2700 staff and be the largest corporate move in New Zealand history.
2011
24 May: Crown Fibre Holdings announced that Telecom had been successful in partnering with the Government to build a fibre network.
9 June: The National Business Review reveals that in OIA documents that the Department of Internal Affairs considered at least one text message sent by Telecom to be in breach of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.
1 December: Telecom divests itself of Chorus, the Network Infrastructure division, in a one for five share deal, with Chorus becoming a separately listed company.
2013
9 December: Telecom announces sale of AAPT for A$450 million
2014
21 February: Telecom announces a name change to 'Spark', which took effect on 8 August 2014 to better reflect the company's new direction and aspirations.
25 June 2014: Spark announce Lightbox, an online movie and TV show streaming service, in competition with Netflix and SkyTV. Lightbox went live on 27 August 2014.
8 August: Telecom rebrands as Spark. Individual subsidiaries of the company are rebranded to reflect the name change such as Telecom Mobile becomes Spark Mobile, Telecom Foundation becomes Spark Foundation, Gen-i is rebranded as Spark Digital. The company kept the existing Star shaped logo with each division using a different colour for the logo such as silver for Spark New Zealand, orange or pink for Spark Home & Mobile stores, green for Spark Business and purple for Spark Digital.
5–7 September: Spark experiences nationwide outages due to a denial of service attack, which was believed to have largely originated from malware that installed itself onto customers' computers when they clicked on malicious links to celebrity photos leaked in August.
2015
12 August: Spark released a new cloud based consumer service called Morepork, which offers smart home based security services. This enabled consumers to purchase security hardware and services through a monthly subscription for home monitoring linked to their mobile phone.
7 December: Spark purchased a South Island–based IT services firm, Computer Concepts Ltd, for $50 million NZD.
2019
14 March: Spark launched its subscription based sports streaming service Spark Sport. The service would compete against Sky Sport (New Zealand) which at the time had a near monopoly on pay TV sports rights in New Zealand.
19 December: It was announced that Spark would be selling its Lightbox streaming service to the satellite television company Sky Television, which intends to merge Lightbox into its own online streaming service Neon in 2020. Following the merger, Spark will partner with Sky to make the service available to Spark customers through the telecommunication company's entertainment offers.
2020s
2023
4 April: Spark announced that it would invest between NZ$250 million and NZ$300 million into building data centres over the next three years, and between NZ$40 million and NZ$60 million into its 5G business over the next three years.
2026
27 April: Spark restructures its organisation into two divisions: a Connectivity division responsible for core telephone and IT services, and a separate Digital Services division.
Mobile network
Telecom started the first cellular network service using AMPS in 1987. This transitioned to D-AMPS TDMA digital services in the early 1990s. The service in the 800 MHz band gave great geographic coverage.
In 1996 Telecom introduced an innovative and first-to-market wireless data cellular network known as CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data) that provided IP connections with mobility. Introduced to the market by the product manager, David Beale, they succeeded in the very first IoT-device connections in the region connecting, amongst other things, Coke's vending machines, NZ Post's couriers and parcel tracking, and telemetry data from the Americas Cup yacht races in Auckland to feed a realtime TV graphics service.
In 2005, a phreaker exposed a vulnerability with the mobile network, allowing public access to almost anyone's voicemail; in response to concerns over privacy and security, this network issue was resolved.
On 31 March 2007, the 025 D-AMPS ("TDMA") cellular network was closed down. Then on 8 June of that year, Telecom Mobile announced plans to build a hybrid W-CDMA/UMTS-CDMA 850 MHz network, based on the WCDMA HSPA technology, to eventually replace its current CDMA EV-DO network. On 29 May 2009, Telecom launched its new network, branded as "XT", to the public.
The XT Network was a brand name for a UMTS and LTE mobile network run by Spark New Zealand (formerly Telecom New Zealand). On 27 April 2009, Telecom announced that the new XT network would launch on 13 May 2009 at 6:30pm.
In May 2009, Vodafone sued Telecom, accusing it of interfering with their network, using the same frequency bands as their existing 3G network. However, Telecom had said it is working with Vodafone to resolve the issues and was surprised by that company's decision to pursue legal action. A decision was made between the two companies to increase the filtering of the network, with neither company stating who was footing the bill.
After lengthy internal and corporate trials, a Vodafone New Zealand and Telecom dispute about network interference pushed the date to 29 May. The XT Network was launched to the public on 29 May 2009, at 7:30 am. The network was the successor to Telecom NZ's CDMA mobile network. With the shutdown of CDMA in 2012, XT is currently the company's sole mobile network.
The network was initially built nationwide on WCDMA/UMTS 850 MHz, with 2100 MHz infill in major urban areas. The UMTS network is HSPA+ enabled, with a maximum downlink transmission rate of 21.1 Mbit/s and an uplink rate of 5.2 Mbit/s attainable for capable hardware. HSPA+ has a theoretical maximum of 56 Mbit/s download speed and 22 Mbit/s upload speed. Then, under Spark, 4G LTE is being built out. The network is not 2G capable; Telecom never operated a public GSM network.
Before and immediately after launch the XT mobile network was promoted by three advertisements hosted by Richard Hammond, and following this was an advert featuring stuntwoman/actress Zoë Bell, advertising speed and roaming capabilities. Telecom claimed that the XT Network to be "Faster in more places" than any other mobile network in New Zealand, including competitor Vodafone and start-up 2degrees; these claims were backed by independent testing commissioned by Telecom. Advertising material at the time proclaimed the network to reach "97% of places Kiwis live and work". This claim was quietly removed in early 2010.
As of 2011 the meaning of "XT" remains unknown to the public, as even Telecom's website fails to address this anomaly. An independent news website featured a "Q&A" having questions submitted by the public and answers from Telecom representatives, and one of the questions asked addressed this: "What time on friday will the network launch? What does XT stand for? XTra? tXT? eXTraordinary? Xtra Telecom?". The network's response only addressed the first part of the question: "The official XT Launch time is 07:30 29 May 2009."
The name "XT Network" is no longer used. It has been called: "XT Mobile Network", then "The Smartphone Network" under Telecom, and now "Spark Mobile" under Spark.
In December 2009 and February 2010, Telecom's new XT Mobile Network experienced high-profile failures for many customers in locations from Taupo south, due to a radio network controller failure in Christchurch. As a result of the loss of service Telecom offered a $5 million compensation package for its customers.
In April 2010, Telecom released its first Android handset on the XT Mobile Network, the LG GW620.
On 31 July 2012, the Telecom CDMA mobile network was closed down.
In September 2013, Telecom officially launched new Ultra Mobile branding and plans. These plans included a free 4G upgrade (4G was made available two months later in November 2013) with a 1GB of data per day from Telecom WiFi hotspots. In October 2013, Telecom sought clearance to acquire management rights for parts of the 700 MHz spectrum with the intention of developing of its 4G mobile network.
"The 4G LTE coverage was initially offered to subscribers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch starting 12 November 2013. Telecom estimates that half of its smartphone network will be able to offer 4G LTE by the end of 2014." The frequencies used for LTE are 1800 MHz (LTE Band 3), and 700 MHz was added once analogue TV frequencies were retired. The first 4G 700 MHz (LTE Band 28) cell sites came online in areas of rural Waikato in mid 2014. Spark also has 2600 MHz (LTE band 7), and 2300 MHz (LTE band 40) LTE, carrier aggregation is available, with a compatible handset band 3 (1800 MHz) and band 7, band 28 and band 40 can be used simultaneously to speed up data access (available in many sites across both rural, and urban NZ).
Spark New Zealand and fellow telecommunications companies 2degrees and One NZ planned to end their 2G and 3G by 31 December 2025. This 3G shutdown has now been completed.
Industry regulation and company restructuring
In 2000, the New Zealand Government conducted a comprehensive review of the regulatory regime in the telecommunications industry. Subsequently, in 2001 the Telecommunications Act was passed, which among other things established the role of a Telecommunications Commissioner.
From Wikipedia’s article on Spark New Zealand, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5