TelstraClear to roll out national residential phone offering

11.00am

TelstraClear is today detailing plans for its phone services to residential customers nationwide.

Previously, TelstraClear was limited to offering services in the Wellington region and Christchurch where it has laid out its own cable network.

But having secured a court ruling that Telecom must wholesale its network, TelstraClear is today making announcements to staff in Wellington and Auckland to detail its offering, including pricing.

Communications Minister Paul Swain is due to speak at the Auckland launch this afternoon.

In June, TelstraClear got a ruling on what Telecom could charge TelstraClear which enables TelstraClear to sell a bundle of telephone and related services to households throughout the country in competition with Telecom.

TelstraClear already sells a phone, internet and pay television services in Wellington and Christchurch. But it has been thwarted until now from reaching the big Auckland residential market and other areas.

It abandoned plans to lay a cable network in Auckland, deeming it too costly.

When the wholesale ruling was made in June, chief executive Rosemary Howard said the decision would for the first time give customers a choice for their home telephone services and they could get all the services on one bill, whether from Telecom or TelstraClear.

A similar decision in Australia in 1994 reduced Telstra Corporation's share of the residential phone "access" market to 75 per cent. Telecom had 92 per cent of the residential phone access market in New Zealand and TelstraClear had 8 per cent. But TelstraClear has about 30 per cent of the Wellington market where its offering is competitive.

TelstraClear wanted Telecommunications Commissioner Douglas Webb to remove Telecom's control of the lines network but he rejected "local loop unbundling" as an option. The wholesaling decision was seen as a next best step.

The Telecommunications Act 2001 said Telecom must sell residential telephone services to a competitor at a 2 per cent discount to its retail price, but a competitor may seek a review of that discount from the commissioner.

Mrs Howard said the commissioner had to set the discount at 2 per cent by law but TelstraClear would apply for a review. It would seek a greater discount that reflected the costs Telecom saved by not having to retail a phone line and services to a customer.

Also today, TelstraClear announced it had won one of New Zealand's biggest business customers -- Inland Revenue

The deal is believed to be worth over $10 million a year and the contract runs for four years.

Last week, TelstraClear reported steady revenue growth for the first quarter of the financial year. Revenue was $177 million, up 5.4 per cent.

- NZPA