28/02/2017
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Please note! this is a public media release by Northland Connect Limited, all information relayed in this public media release before the date of 01-03-2017 is classified and deemed as confidential and commercially sensitive.
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Written by: Matthew Greaves - CEO Northland Connect Limited.
Northland Connect is a local Bay of Islands Internet provider using Fibre Optic and Ultra-Fast Wireless within the local Bay of Islands area.
Northland Connect was purely designed and built for the Bay of Islands Community which lacked in infrastructure to provide Ultra-Fast Broadband at a price that everyone could afford as well as being a large goal of mine to give the community a service that was shaped around how the community wanted the service and knowing that their monthly service payments were going into High Tech investments and jobs for their community which ultimately benefits everyone living here.
However, Northland Connect is a lean operation and during its inception has required more Carrier Class Internet Capacity as the network expanded and customer data usage increased.
This became a challenge when our services became too popular within the Community, so our design / planning team investigated new options and made large changes to the business such as closing the retail store in Paihia.
The closing of the store was decided as a "way to ensure we could meet the larger wholesale expense" as the store was a very large expense per month and this revenue would be better utilised on acquiring more carrier class internet capacity to meet the current and future demand.
Unfortunately, in early 2015, our wholesale supplier at the time “HD NET Limited” failed to meet our network demands as our area in their view was “very expensive to provide High Capacity Internet” and stated that no additional Capacity would be available.
This resulted in services running slow or dropping out at peak usage times and as this supplier had frequent outages which also caused disruption to your service it was decided that Northland Connect would transfer to another wholesale provider that could deliver what we required.
In August 2015, Northland Connect joined with “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” after Extensive talks with the CEO from “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” and being reassured by promises to the Northland Connect management team that they “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” could deliver what we needed and that they “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” was committed.
The new fibre circuit and carrier class internet was provisioned to be ready for operational service on the 21st October 2015, Northland Connect support team were advised by myself to inform clients of this date as we had received many complaints from very upset customers who were fed up with the disruption to services to say the least.
At the time, I had no doubt that “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” would not meet their commitments.
However, “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” failed to install the new circuit and more upsetting, failed to deliver on the dates specified, in fact the reality is nothing had been done and the Wholesale provider “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” failed to follow up and inform Northland Connect.
After the 21st October 2015, I immediately contacted “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” and after multiple heated discussions, failed to get a final confirmed date, every week the date was pushed back further and further.
Unfortunately, this had a detrimental effect on how we communicated with customers as we didn’t want to give false or misleading information.
Either way, we would usually endure verbal / written discontent by some customers that understandably were clearly frustrated at the ongoing delays and disruptions to services being provided.
An extension of services was verbally agreed to by “HD NET Limited” until the fibre link or another solution was established by “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited”.
“HD NET Limited” supplied additional service and invoiced for an additional three months plus internal collection costs for relapsing the contract.
“The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” installed a temporary circuit which was roughly 40% slower than what we had with our previous wholesaler “HD NET Limited" after they “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” acknowledged that they “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” failed to deliver on time which caused a relapse on our contract with “HD NET Limited” and network feeds at the old store which our landlords urgently wanted removed due to the fact that they were well over the agreed due by date for being removed and disconnected.
The landlords despite being angered, thankfully worked with us to stop the removal which would have resulted in complete network failure over a large period of time, the most damaging outcome to happen to an internet service provider like Northland Connect.
After 1 month of still being connected to the temporary circuit and the summer season kicking in around the bay which caused even more challenges to work with because combined user internet usage triples over the summer period which then requires us to purchase in more capacity to meet the increased demand.
Because of still being connected to the temporary circuit and the increased demand for internet capacity, we had to restrict non-critical services and slow down speeds at peak times as this is industry standard under heavy usage conditions, however is meant to be only a temporary option used for a couple of hours not something you leave on for months.
Many customers were extremely disappointed and they could not endure any more disruptions to their service which resulted in them switching to other providers, I made the CEO of “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” aware of the damage being caused by their failure to deliver and that we have endured 5-6 months in total of waiting for a solution, he showed no empathy or concern for the issues raised.
Then shortly after this an invoice from “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” arrived for using the "temporary circuit" without knowledge of there being an additional cost for this service as I was under the impression that it was to be provided for failing to deliver!
So “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” expects Northland Connect to pay for a service that’s slower than the last wholesale provider, which due to their incompetence and failure to deliver what was originally promised and is causing substantial financial loss and damage to reputation?
"Well Yes, you “Northland Connect” have to pay for it as it’s not my fault" verbally stated the CEO of “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited” he then refused to compensate or discount the temporary circuit which in my view would have been a gesture of goodwill for the damage being caused.
This was another strain on Northland Connect while trying to upgrade on the delayed Fibre Link.
It was in mid-December 2015 that the circuit was finally installed and operational.
Initial tests looked fantastic, however over a period after the initial tests, clients started calling in and emailing stating that they were having poor performance and general speeds were slow despite the fact that the circuit had been upgraded.
At the time, I was suffering ill health and requiring extensive medical treatments.
I did not communicate how ill I was to the public as I regarded how unwell I was as personal information, though now after reflection I feel I should have communicated this.
Due to these reasons, I admit and apologise I wasn’t able perform my duties effectively and for the time it has taken for me to recover from ill health.
When concerns within Northland Connect management were raised regarding complaints with the network an internal investigation was requested to be conducted on the entire network to isolate what was causing all these issues.
After 1-2 months of investigating, it was concluded from substantial evidence, that the issue was related to the new circuit that was being provided from “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited”.
I compiled extensive evidence to show that the issue was not with the Northland Connect network and supplied this to the CEO of “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited”.
Around this time, Northland Connect was taken to court by “HD NET Limited” and as my time was being taken up with trying to resolve the problem with “The Digital Lab 2007 Limited”, I wasn’t aware of the limited time to produce a statement of defense to the court.
Well what did this mean? Northland Connect could not disagree and had to accept “HD NET Limited” claims which were incorrect and outright fraudulent.
As Northland Connect is committed to the community, we met the demands of “HD NET Limited” in the high court to win our defense case with “HD NET Limited” which was a large expense directly caused by the actions of “The Digital Lab 2007” who failed to deliver and provide a reliable and stable service which was promised by the CEO “The Digital Lab 2007”.
When it became apparent that “The Digital Lab 2007” were not going to fix the ongoing issues and after multiple attempts requesting to receive evidence to back their claims that “The Digital Lab 2007” was not at fault, Northland Connect then made the decision to switch as Northland Connect was now under extreme pressure and morale was dwindling as a direct result of “The Digital Lab 2007” actions and non-performance.
I personally love coming to work and helping customers but with everything that was going on I got over stressed and started to close myself away from everything.
When Northland Connect could secure a new wholesaler and move away from “The Digital Lab 2007”, we made the switch and thus the network issues being caused by “The Digital Lab 2007” were resolved, which fully proved to myself and the shareholders that Northland Connect was not at fault thus confirming “The Digital Lab 2007” claims to be false and misleading.
“The Digital Lab 2007” are claiming a substantial termination fee despite not producing evidence to back their “The Digital Lab 2007” claims.
This failure caused major damage to the growth of the business and both myself and Kurtis were now burnt out and overtired from all these pressures.
Then things get even worse, our databases and all our website / email / billing servers which were hosted by another NZ company who co-located their servers at “HD NET Limited”, was attacked and damage to all storage arrays was so extensive that all our data was destroyed including backup copies.
We had to rebuild everything we hosted, which was many hours of work and included teething issues, like the late fees being applied and emailed automatically to Customers.
This disruption caused more stress and frustration to overcome and rectify.
Then despite Northland Connect still being in dispute “The Digital Lab 2007” decided to take Northland Connect to court, which is now why you see the notice for proceedings in the newspaper.
Northland Connect has submitted a statement of defense to the high court.
Unfortunately, I can’t go into this at present because of legal restraints.
I again will state that Northland Connect is committed to the community and that we are not closing nor are we “Northland Connect” in receivership or liquidating.
I want to deeply apologize for how bad the communication which has been getting worse over the past 16 months was and ask that as a community, we can work together and rebuild this business to how we all would like it to run and operate.
I hope that by being upfront and honest with you today about all the challenges that have been going on internally this shows you my team and I do care and accept the important need to change and improve.
I know that if we work together, great outcomes will happen.
I will be working over the next week to rebuild all communication methods so when that’s all completed and ready to go, we can start to get everyone’s input and ideas on how we should improve and implement these changes.
Thank You to everyone for supporting Northland Connect through these difficult times.
Kind Regards,
Matthew Greaves
CEO – Northland Connect
“End of Public Media Release”
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Please note! this is a public media release by Northland Connect Limited, all information relayed in this public media release before the date of 01-03-2017 is classified and deemed as confidential and commercially sensitive.
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