Paul Brislen

Mention disaster recovery to most businesses and they automatically start to think about power failures, earthquakes or some kind of nationwide catastrophe. It's because of that attitude, says Plan-B Ltd. founder and director Martin Wellesley, that disaster recovery plans tend to be vague and ultimately not worth the paper they're printed on.

New Zealand's mobile telecommunications market is set to be reshaped in the coming weeks as TelstraClear prepares to announce its plans for its own 3G network here. Currently, New Zealand has two entirely separate cell phone networks -- a situation almost unique in the developed world. Overseas operators more commonly roam on each other's networks and customers can change providers without changing handsets. Speculation has centered on four scenarios for TelstraClear's mobile plans.

New Zealand's telecommunications industry has spent quite some time over the past fortnight debating how best to avoid a repeat of the embarrassing outage that knocked out most of the country's telecommunications last month.

They take their weather very seriously in Scotland, as the BBC is finding out after the launch of its New Zealand-developed weather system on the news. Scottish National Party MP Angus MacNeil describes the new 3D graphics as giving a

Vector Ltd. has finally shown its hand in the broadband business market with an aggressive offering designed to steal customers from the incumbents.

New Zealand wireless network operator Broadcast Communications Ltd. (BCL) is to trial a WiMax network targeting urban centers. The move could see BCL abandon its stance of only servicing rural and remote New Zealand, and position it head-to-head with the country's only other national network operator, Telecom New Zealand Ltd. (Telecom).

New Zealand's Minister of Communications, David Cunliffe, hopes his soon-to-be-introduced antispam bill will be the foundation of an international antispam campaign.

Responses to the New Zealand government's decision not to unbundle the local telecommunications loop have been swift and condemning.