Consumer, InternetNZ, TUANZ: No secret pricing deals

Get secret pricing deals off the table – Consumer, InternetNZ, TUANZ

"Trying to do a deal on prices would undermine the important role an independent regulator has to play in setting them."

“Customers are poorly served by the telecommunications industry working together in secret to fix the price of wholesale broadband.”

Media release – 13 July 2013

This release is available online at http://tinyurl.com/ng8xsky

Consumer, InternetNZ and the Telecommunications Users Association responded today to a report in the Dominion Post that the telecommunications industry was seeking to negotiate a price for the wholesale copper broadband service known as UBA.

A Commerce Commission conference to help determine the regulated price of that service concludes in Wellington today, with the telco industry negotiations understood to seek to influence a forthcoming discussion paper on a regulatory review of the Telco Act announced by Communications Minister Amy Adams in February.

TUANZ CEO Paul Brislen says the best way to resolve the issue of pricing rules for a monopoly service like UBA is through open and transparent discussion. “If the report in today's paper is accurate, it seems that some in the industry would prefer to see a deal done in private, and without the scrutiny of users," he says.

InternetNZ Acting Chief Executive Jordan Carter says "Industry discussion and input on the policy framework and to help inform the regulatory review is a good thing, because government decisions should be well informed”.

Consumer CEO Sue Chetwin says "A line is crossed if specific prices are being discussed - that moves the matter from an intelligent debate about the best possible policy framework, to what looks like a stitch-up - or worse, a cartel".

These kinds of back room deals are rarely good for consumers and it puts us in the awful position of the industry sitting down together to set pricing without reference to either customers or to the regulator, say the three Chief Executives.

None of our organisations are in the loop with these conversations, and none of us want to be. We won't talk about prices, and neither should the industry: that's a job for the Commerce Commission. We will make our points about the review in public. We urge the industry to take the same view.

"Setting the rules and setting the prices are two different jobs. The review is about reviewing the pricing rules. The regulator has the job of setting the prices. Trying to do a deal on prices would undermine the important role an independent regulator has to play in setting them. Without that protection, consumers are unlikely to get a fair deal," the CEOs conclude.

ENDS

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