Telecom takes flak at Tuanz meet

By Richard Braddell

WELLINGTON - Consumer choice in all sectors of the telecommunications market is being restricted by intensifying anti-competitive behaviour by Telecom, the Enterprise and Commerce Minister, Max Bradford, has been told.

The meeting in Wellington yesterday between the minister and six new entrants was sought by Telstra and the Telecommunications Users' Association. But while the re-billing dispute between Telstra and Telecom that erupted three weeks ago is the spur, the carriers widened their complaints to embrace a host of issues.

Among them, Telecom's refusal to act on customers' letters of authority, pricing of data services, onerous access code conditions, discriminatory interconnection pricing, inadequate service level guarantees, the indiscriminate taking down of customer networks, fragmentation of carrier account management and the dismantling of support mechanisms.

"Tuanz and the carriers advised the minister that Telecom's anti-competitive behaviour had intensified in the last six months," the delegation said afterwards. While Vodafone and Saturn were not present, the meeting was attended by Telstra, Clear, CallPlus, Compass, WorldxChange and GlobalOne.

In a statement under the Tuanz banner, the carriers described the meeting as an unprecedented show of unity against Telecom's practices.

It is all the more so since not only have Telstra and Clear been pitted against each other, they have also exhibited widely divergent responses to a regime which Telstra, dominant in Australia, has been satisfied to tackle on its own terms.