CallPlus walks away from telco lobby group

Telecommunications company CallPlus has walked away from an industry lobby group saying it only represented the views of industry heavyweights.

The Telecommunications Industry Group (TIG) was created a year ago as a forum for the chief executives to promote the industry and have a common voice.

It was the backer of last month's Planet 2010 technology showcase.

The problem, said CallPlus chief executive Mark Callander, is the "voice of the industry" is predominantly the view of the larger incumbent network operators.

Callander said that although the group has worked to promote the industry, the different sized operators - the tier one telcos Telecom and Vodafone and tier two telcos that includes CallPlus - had different needs.

He said the group favoured little or no regulation, certainty for infrastructure investors and a dislike of government investment or intervention, which were not views held by CallPlus.

"It's not that anything new has arisen, we went into it eyes wide open. It's evolved. The TIG has taken a direction on certain issues which we obviously have a different view on, therefore it's just not appropriate for us to be involved because it's not in our best interest," said Callander.

TIG chief executive Rob Spray said it was disappointing CallPlus had resigned its membership at the end of the first year.

"I certainly want the TIG to stand for things that make sense and are obvious and I guess sometimes there might be differences of opinion in that," said Spray.

With the departure of CallPlus, the TIG is now made up of seven telcos: Telecom, Vodafone, Vector, Baycity Communications, FX Networks, Kordia, and WorldxChange.

TelstraClear and mobile 2degrees have never been members.

Two of the original members, Woosh and Citylink, withdrew last year.

Woosh chairman Rod Inglis said although telecommunications needed promoting, the structure of the industry meant it was hard to achieve.

He said the TIG membership became "distracting".

"It's pretty hard to get a balanced view no matter how much you try so I thought we were better off not to be compromised," said Inglis.