ross@tcnz1.tcnz.co.nz (Ross Keatinge) (05/31/91)
I am new to this group and have found the discussions interesting. Some of you may be interested in some of the quirks and features of our telecom system in New Zealand which has had major changes over the last few years. Until a few years ago the N.Z. Post Office ran and controlled all phone systems in N.Z. Then the Government made it into a 'state owned enterprise', ie a commercial company but still owned by the people of N.Z. Recently a part of Telecom N.Z. has been sold to Bell Atlantic and Ameritech. The public can buy shares in the rest. The good part of all this is that we now have a very modern system. Some technicalities: Our rotary phones (just about all gone now) had the dial numbering opposite to most countries, ie 0 was in the same place but then it went 123456789 instead of the more common 987654321. I guess the logic was that to dial N it sent N pulses, except 0 which sent 10. This obviously caused problems with overseas sourced modems etc, to get a modem to dial say 234-9876 you had to program it as 876-1234. Our emergency number was and still is 111 when the rest of the world was 999 ( we never had 199 which would be the equivalent of 911 !). I am please to say we now have standard DTMF tones. Our ringing signal is a double -- -- -- type ring. - - - - means busy. They are in the process of rationalizing area codes throughout the country. We used to have a real mix of anything from one to seven digit numbers with area codes from one to five digits. We will now have only five single digit area codes and all seven digit numbers. All private local calls are 'free'. ie there is a fixed fee charged. Businesses pay about 4c per minute. (They were also free until recently). No, you cannot call US 800 numbers from here or Australian 008 which is their equivalent. We have 800 and 900 numbers just like the US. We have most of the modern features like call redirection, call waiting etc. My phone at home beeps if there is a call waiting and I can hit the hookswitch and toggle between the two callers. Our cellphone system seems quite good. It operates just like another area code across the whole country. Likewise for pagers. The debate about the pros and cons of caller identification has begun here. There are similar arguments here along the "telco's making too much money" line. Yesterday Telecom N.Z. laid off about 500 staff in Auckland and Northland. Ross Keatinge, Systems Engineer (ross@tcnz.co.nz) Thomas Cook N.Z. Limited, PO Box 24, Auckland CPO, New Zealand, Ph (09)-793920 Disclaimer : I am not an official spokesperson for Thomas Cook