Wholesale broadband service back on track

By PAUL BRISLEN

Telecom is back on schedule to launch its wholesale broadband internet service on 29 September and has released more information about the future development path for wholesale.

The Commerce Commission had warned internet providers that Telecom's proposed commercial wholesale plan did not meet its criteria for a regulated wholesale plan but did not give any details.

Yesterday the Commission released a statement saying the regulated service would be made available alongside the commercial service. Telecom had called a halt to the rollout of its wholesale service pending a discussion with the Commission.

Telecom's wholesale manager for strategy Martin Butler had said Telecom would not offer two similar wholesale services, one regulated and one commercial, as it would be too complicated to administer.

Telecom's public affairs manager John Goulter said today the company would offer this commercial wholesale model from September and would wait to see what shape the regulated wholesale service was before deciding what to do.

"We can't make any comment on how [the commercial service] would fit with the regulated service because there is no regulated service yet and we haven't seen the shape of it". The Commission won't define its regulated service until one of Telecom's competitors seeks a ruling on the matter.

Telecom's commercial wholesale service offers internet providers control over the connection with the customer at a speed of 256 kbps (kilobits per second) download and 128 kbps upload.

However Telecom has now announced several new plans, including a 512/128 kbps business service to be launched in March, two 1028/128 kbps plans, for residential and business, to be offered in May and two 2048/128 kbps plans to be offered at a later date.