Clear cut case of a numbers game ...

By Richard Braddell

Between the lines

At least there is one thing the telecommunications industry agrees on: all the carriers want independent administration and allocation of telephone numbers.

To be sure, Telecom has stonewalled the idea for years; now it wants it, if only to forestall something worse in the way of regulation.

On the face of it, the chances look good that the numbering deed put up by the five carriers will get the necessary Commerce Commission authorisation, if only because the commission has already issued a draft determination supporting it and because it is what Communications Minister Maurice Williamson wants.

Resistance to the proposal is also far from uniform. While Clear is vehement in its opposition, Saturn Communications, which has so far not signed, is not even appearing at this week's three-day conference on the issue, suggesting that it will bow to the inevitable when it happens.

But the proposal is a love me, love my dog arrangement. At its rawest, dissenting carriers are being told that if they don't accept the number portability arrangements then they won't get access to any new numbers.

Quite why the portability provisions should be compulsory is hard to fathom. One reason is that the deed proponents are concerned that non members can freeload on the development work they might do. Another, that by not signing they save on the deed's $10,000 a year annual fee.

When asked yesterday why administration should be linked with portability, Vodafone responded curiously that portability is a characteristic of a number and of its issue. Furthermore, Vodafone said, portability is also part of the administration. But that surely is the case simply because the deed makes it so.

Meanwhile, Clear is opposed to portability provisions that it regards as too airy-fairy to be of any value. The deed provides at first instance only for an independent expert to simply work out if a more advanced solution to portability is economically beneficial to society. Nevertheless, the deed does have procedures to bring things to finality ... eventually.

But the case for immediately embarking on advanced solutions to number portability is not cut and dried either. As technology changes, solutions will become cheaper. And in other countries which are much further ahead in developing intelligent network solutions, there are still difficult technical and cost issues to be resolved.

In the end, Clear Communications may have the trump card. A last minute paper from the former Prime Minister, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, argues forcefully that setting up a situation where Clear was coerced into joining the deed may be a breach of the 1990 Bill of Rights Act.

The Commerce Commission may feel it can ignore one of New Zealand's foremost constitutional experts. But it now knows there is the makings of a great court case.