Working for an itty-bitty telco as I do, it was interesting to note your post Max, to whit: Telecom NZ is privately, not state, owned. It is also widely loathed and resented here as the bully-boy monopolist, making very healty(sic) profits at the expense of its customers, and cynically crushing attempts at establishing real competition. It is held in the same sort of esteem that M$ is in the software world. I supect that most NZers are simply wishing that Telecom had so addressed them. (I know I am)

Substitute Telecom for Telstra (the O$$ie equivalent) and you've got the situation here.

Just add a bit of spin to what seems to be a widespread impression about monopolistic telco's and you have the key ingredient to a sales pitch! I never fail to mention in my opening remarks to prospective clients that we are a competitor to Telstra. You can just see them thinking, "I hate those arrogant bastards , maybe these blokes are one way of not having to use Telstra anymore".

Does anybody out there actually like their telephone service provider? (Our customers are excluded from this survey!)

stales