Fed-up TelstraClear off to court

By RICHARD WOOD

The relationship between TelstraClear and Telecom hit new depths yesterday as TelstraClear headed to the High Court.

The company applied for an interim injunction under the Commerce Act to compel Telecom to activate additional telephony links that TelstraClear says it has been waiting for since August.

This comes on top of its application last week to the Commerce Commission, seeking a ruling on a dispute with Telecom over interconnection and wholesale services. That process is expected to take up to three months and will be the first action under the Telecommunications Act.

TelstraClear spokesman Quentin Bright said the High Court request was the type of issue the new Telecommunications Commissioner would deal with. But in this case, TelstraClear was tired of waiting.

"Probably from here on in the commissioner can deal with this sort of thing, but we're talking about something historical here.

"The determination from the commissioner is likely to take some months. For us, the matter is more pressing given that it has already gone on for nine months."

Bright said there had been several discussions between the two companies at both a technical and commercial level and "we sit here linkless".

Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Ernie Newman said the dispute showed that "the cricket is not necessarily over just because the commissioner is on the paddock".

He said more of the same was likely, at least until the commissioner got through his first determination.

Telecom chief operating officer Simon Moutter said it was ready to provide more links to TelstraClear, subject to resolving longstanding payment problems.

"Telecom cannot be expected to provide TelstraClear with more service when we would, in effect, be doing so for free."

TelstraClear's announcement yesterday said that it ordered 62 "special point of local interconnect" links from Telecom in August. It claimed the lack of additional capacity to carry 0800 traffic to its network was harming its business.

TelstraClear chief executive Rosemary Howard said attempts to resolve the matter had proved fruitless and Telecom's refusal to supply the links was anti-competitive.

Telecom is also in the midst of High Court action from internet provider i4free, which is claiming around $18 million in loss of profits and related legal costs.

The action relates to Telecom's "0867" prefix dialling for internet providers and the disconnection of i4free's lines in April 2000. The company won an interim injunction to get its lines reconnected.

The full case, and another action over 0867 by the Commerce Commission, is due to be heard on September 9.