2nd Feb 2018: Select Committee Submission on the Telecommunications (New Regulatory Framework) Bill

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2nd February 2018

Today we have filed with Parliament our select committee submission on the current bill before the house to amend the Telco Act.  Our focus is in ensuring the Act can respond quickly to changes for the benefit of users.  At the recent board meeting, the discussion was very much around how any changes to the Act needs to be forward looking in line with technology advancement and user requirements. 

In our submission we picked out a small number of specific issues:

  • The Pricing Model – generally supporting the proposed utility model but with real concerns that the anchor products may not be flexible enough in definition
  • >Unbundling Fibre – encourage the requirement for unbundling of fibre to remain in the Act
  • Withdrawal of Fibre – asked for a very strong copper withdrawal code to protect end users
  • Service Quality Monitoring – pushed for as much transparency around monitoring and reporting
  • Consumer Disputes – strongly supported strengthening the Commerce Commission’s powers in this area
  • Line of Business Restriction – withheld our opinion on this matter at this point
  • End User Involvement in Advocacy  – once again pushed for the introduction of a model similar to the Australian model where funding is provided to develop high quality consumer focused advocacy.  This is to help overcome the imbalance in resourcing between parties who participate in regulatory process for this market.

You can download the full document here: 18Feb02 Select Committee Submission re Telecommunications Bill Final.