The decision released by the Commerce Commission yesterday stating that prepay mobile services are covered under number portability seems like a fitting end to 2007. Number portability was quietly introduced to the user on April 1 after years of wrangling and it seemed to herald a new era in the New Zealand telecommunication landscape.
Then on April 3, just three days after its introduction, we posted a Downstream blog - Vodafone don’t want Telecom Prepay customers to Port.
Newspaper reports today suggest Vodafone will be able to open number portability to prepay customers by April 2008. So a year on from its official launch all users may finally be able to reap the benefits of portability.
This morning I had a look over the 301 Downstream blogs that Ernie and I have written in 2007 and it was interesting to see how much has been resolved. For example, it was good to see that one issue we’ve been following - the 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz spectrum auction - appeared to go off without a hitch. Looking forward to see how CallPlus and Woosh et al use their spectrum allocation.
But even more interesting to me was to find out which blog posts got the most comments. It’s probably not the most scientific metric to determine how popular they were, but it is, I think, the best indication of which posts were the most provocative. So here’s the top five (well six, but two relate to the same issue) in order of the number of comments received:
Text messages go astray
Compensation for Xtra Customers
Isn’t Xtra its own Worst Enemy
Telecom Wholesale has a Case to Answer
Vodafone Deliberately Stunting Growth – Budde
Minister “Angry” with TUANZ Termination Comments
Merry Christmas and we look forward to your feedback in 2008!