Commerce Commission Draft Decision Dissapointing

Commerce Commission Draft Decision delivers a dissapointingly mixed outcome for Users

The Commerce Commission latest draft decision on wholesale copper charges this morning has provided a mixed bag of results for users today. Users will see no benefit in their monthly bills from telecommunications service providers given that the price set for monthly access remains basically unchanged from the previous draft decision. Users have already seen the effect of the increase of the latest decisions over the benchmarked initial price when it was released at the end of last year. TUANZ had submitted with other interested parties that we believed the price should be lower than had been announced by the Commission last December and therefore lower than announced today.

“For the significant number of people who will continue to receive their broadband over the copper network over the next 5 years, and especially those users in Rural New Zealand who will not have fibre access as part of UFB, this announcement disappointingly means no likelihood of reduction in monthly broadband charges” said Craig Young, TUANZ CEO.

TUANZ is pleased that the Commerce Commission has announced their preliminary decision not to backdate the changes to the copper access prices once finalised, which if implemented could have added more cost and uncertainty to users.

The Commission has released a raft of documents which provides complex detail around these numbers and TUANZ CEO Craig Young and notes that the time for organisations such as TUANZ to submit on the decision is limited.

“We will continue to participate fully in this process, always speaking for the end-users of these services. Our concern has always been over ensuring a fair and competitive market which is sustainable and continues to provide world class services to New Zealanders at fair prices.”

ENDS

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