Telecom New Zealand loses tech head over 3G issues

Telecom New Zealand (TCNZ) said Tuesday that chief technical officer Frank Mount has resigned, effective immediately.

The move likely comes as a result of the technical nightmare TCNZ is having with its HSPA network at present. The carrier’s news page has recently been a litany of status updates after the persistent crashing of the newly launched 3G network.

Infrastructure partner Alcatel-Lucent has reportedly been put on notice for failing to fix the issue, and on Monday the vendor announced the appointment of Jyoti Mahurkar-Thombre as head of its New Zealand operations, following the resignation of Steve Lowe, who oversaw the TCNZ deployment.

Following the departure of TCNZ’s Frank Mount, CIO David Havercroft will assume the responsibility for all network and IT operations from today and CFO Russ Houlden will carry interim responsibility for our Shared Services operations and Technology Strategy, the carrier said.

TCNZ’s HSPA deployment has been dogged by troubles. Last year MVNO partner TelstraClear struck a deal with Vodafone New Zealand to offer 3G services in the country, after Telstra’s relationship with TCNZ collapsed.