Clear and Saturn give in to numbering deed

By Richard Braddell

WELLINGTON - Clear Communications has signed, and Saturn Communications is about to sign, the contentious numbering deed authorised by the Commerce Commission a month ago.

Clear, which led the protest against the agreement, said it would not be mounting a legal challenge to the deed and had decided to sign under protest because it needed new telephone numbers in order to compete.

Meanwhile, Saturn Communications, which is rapidly expanding its Wellington customer base at the expense of Telecom, said it too would be forced to sign the agreement.

"Saturn has two choices: either we stop selling and we don't sign the deed or we sign the deed and remain in business. We will be signing the deed but it will be under protest," Saturn's chief legal counsel, Sean Wynne, said.

The agreement, under which Telecom cedes management of the New Zealand telephone numbering plan to an independent administrator, drove yet another wedge between industry players when it was drafted earlier this year.

While Clear and Saturn have both welcomed independent number administration, they resent the way in which the agreement bundles in what they consider to be excessively open-ended arrangements that might result in the introduction of number portability.

Number portability enables telephone users to keep the same number if they change to another carrier and is widely regarded as a prerequisite to a fully competitive market.

However, carriers such as Clear fear that Telecom will use any agreement on number portability as a foundation for forcing the other carriers to pay for upgrades to its network which it believes it will have to make anyway.

"We remain extremely concerned at the commercial coercion represented by this process," said Clear's chief executive, Tim Cullinane.

"The deed fails to ensure that consumers will definitely obtain anything better in the way of number portability than the present unsatisfactory and expensive call forwarding option offered by Telecom," Mr Cullinane said.

"It leaves open the possibility that consumers will have to reimburse Telecom's network upgrade costs."

Mr Cullinane said Clear had signed having advised the Government that it reserved the right to take legal action if the process turned out to be anti-competitive.

Noting that the commission had only authorised that aspect of the deed which had the effect of restricting the supply of numbers to those parties who had signed the deed, he said the commission had not authorised any aspect of the deed, or conduct by the parties, that might lessen competition.