Southern business are threatening to change telcos, having lost patience after enduring a third day with no or intermittent cell phone coverage on Telecom's XT network yesterday.
ACC New Zealand Masters Games manager Aaron Joy said on the eve of the country's largest sporting event, being hosted in Dunedin, he had to call in more staff to cover for the start of the games last night due to the likelihood he would have a fourth day today with out cellular communication.
"There are more than 71 activities and the only way to contact the co-ordinators is via cell phone.
"For us, communication is going to mean more manpower.
"Everything will be far more labour intensive.
"If this goes on any longer, we will have to seriously consider another provider," he said.
In addition, many of the 3000 competitors coming to the city from out of town would have little or no cell phone coverage, he said.
Simon Perry, the supervisor of Aotea Electric's communication's division, said Telecom could not compensate his business for the loss of business and inconvenience the outage has caused.
"I don't think Telecom could afford to compensate for the cost of the network outage."
Twelve of his division's 12 staff used Telecom's XT system, and Mr Perry said when it went down on Wednesday, staff had to visit work sites to inform them of the problems.
Since then, they have had to use clients' landline telephones or return to the office for instructions and jobs.
"It is still a major drama for us."
Mr Perry said Telecom should have had a backup system or spare equipment in the event of an outage of this scale.
But other businesses were more forthcoming.
Zeagold Foods managing director Mike Guthrie said, while the outage has been frustrating, costly and inconvenient, Telecom had been helpful.
He was in Central Otago when it crashed and was offered a cell phone on an alternative Telecom system.
"I thought that was pretty good of them," Mr Guthrie said.
He has more than 100 staff including representatives and merchandisers reliant on cell phones, which were gradually shifting to the XT network, and he said the outage would prove costly.
The actual cost to his business might never be known.
"It is the frustration of not knowing what you have missed," he said.
With this being the second crash in a month, Mr Guthrie said questions would be asked about the system's reliability and whether a future collapse would be worse.
That lack of confidence might prompt some businesses to consider carrying backup cell phones on a different network, a cost Mr Guthrie said Telecom should have to carry.
Meanwhile, Vodafone has been quick to target companies seeking their business, with the promise its 3G network was reliable and robust.
In one such letter acquired by the Otago Daily Times, Vodafone states its 3G system has a backup 2G service should it fail.
