KEY POINTS:
Communications Minister David Cunliffe is applauding a Vodafone deal with New Zealand Communications (NZC) that will make it easier for a third mobile phone player to enter the market.
Expectations are that NZC, currently building a network, will bring a cut to mobile charges from Vodafone.
But progress has been slow with NZC blaming incumbents - and in particular Vodafone - for slowing progress with the interconnection and co-location agreements.
These deals, approved last week, allow them the infrastructure to start up while their own network is still being fully developed.
Cunliffe and Labour have promoted themselves as having introduced telecommunications competition, and when it comes to fixed-line services that has been true.
But heading into the November 8 election, the mobile industry is still dominated by Vodafone, with a 53 per cent share.
Telecom is playing catch up and New Zealand Communications is still months off ending the duopoly.
Cunliffe nagged Vodafone to sign the interconnection and co-location agreements, which were finally approved last week and which allow NZC to place its transmitters on Vodafone towers.
But while the deal shortens some of the barriers, NZC still faces Resource Management Act approval for the 112 sites and, more importantly, other sites where it has to build its own towers.
NZC chief executive Mike Reynolds is tipped to name the launch date for the third mobile phone network at the end of this month, offering some propaganda value to the minister, who has harassed Vodafone to co-operate.
But Reynolds - who was appointed in June last year amid the new capital from Trilogy International Partners - confirmed that a launch this year was "very unlikely" and said while politicians have talked of the impact of a third player in bringing down rates, the impact was in value for consumers and not just price.
Reynolds insisted "it's not a race" to be up and running before the new Telecom GSM network, which will replace Telecom's obsolete CDMA network. The new network has a "soft launch" aimed at business customers early next year and a full launch in the second quarter of 2009.
That means Vodafone, which has reaped a big return for its monopoly hold on the 3G market, will have several more months to entrench its dominance.
Reynolds joined Singapore-based StarHub in 2001 from BellSouth China, where he was chief executive and president.
