The Telecom-Alcatel partnership covers both operational and engineering areas, and has no time frame. Mine describes it as a "marriage".

"It takes a lot of communication and commitment from both sides. Our relationship keeps getting deeper and richer with time. At this point, we are very much a part of each other's day-to-day business."

One of the benefits for Telecom is access to Alcatel's global set of knowledge and economics, Mine says.

Her plan is to further develop the union with Telecom, and she says she can't wait to bring triple play (next-generation broadband technologies for voice, video and data services) to New Zealand. Quite when triple play would be made available here is a question for Telecom, says Anna Perrin, corporate communications manager of Alcatel Australia and New Zealand.

According to the Ministry of Economic Development, the minimum requirement for triple play is an approximately 1Mbit/s uplink and 20Mbit/s downlink. Typical broadband in New Zealand runs at 128kbit/s up and 2Mbit/s down, which is not sufficient to provide such advanced services.