Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Ditching of XT contract by DHB denied by Telecom

Updated at 4:18 pm on 5 March 2010

A Telecom official denies Hutt Valley District Health Board is ditching its XT mobile service amid concerns over the reliability of the network and says it is not aware of any other health boards who have quit.

The network, which has been operating less than a year, has broken down four times since December. The problems have affected thousands of customers, mainly south of Taupo.

Telecom is giving SIM cards from rival company 2Degrees to hospital staff in Canterbury due to concerns over the reliability of the XT network.

The cards can be used in XT phones, or staff are having their 3G XT phones replaced with older 2G Telecom phones which are not affected by the network

fault.

It was reported on Thursday that Hutt Valley DHB intends to quit the XT network, as it said it is unreliable and could potentially threaten patient safety.

Telecom's Gen-i unit chief executive Chris Quinn says Hutt Valley DHB has less than 50 users on XT and discussions have been held with the board about what to do with those phones.

Mr Quinn told Morning Report that Telecom has been buying 2Degrees SIM cards for health boards to use as stand-by. He said Telecom was buying them at retail price.

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