Telecom's rivals call for TSO shake-up

Mobile phone giant Vodafone is calling for a shake-up of Telecom's Kiwi Share agreement after being hit with a $28 million bill in the past three years.

The 15-year-old agreement, revised in 2001 and now called Telecommunications Service Obligations (TSO), was penned between Telecom and the government in order to ensure the telco provided telephones to uneconomic customers.

Telecom passes that cost on to its rivals, but support is gathering -- from Vodafone, the New Zealand arm of the British mobile giant, and smaller telephone companies, for an overhaul of the agreement, The Dominion Post reported today.

Vodafone wants to see a competitive tender for providing the Kiwi Share service.

Vodafone's public policy manager, Roger Ellis, told the paper the TSO "amounts to directly subsidising the fixed line operator Telecom to provide a particular level of service".

For the year to June 2004, the Commerce Commission calculated the loss to Telecom from the TSO was $41.2 million.

- NZPA