Watchdog snaps at Telecom attitude

A competition watchdog says it is time Telecom improved its attitude so that New Zealanders get cheaper, faster services.

Telecommunications commissioner Douglas Webb signalled at a conference in Auckland yesterday that he was running out of patience with the do-the-minimum stance of New Zealand's biggest listed company.

He called on Telecom to provide its retail competitors with greater wholesale price access to its network, particularly high-speed internet.

New Zealand was suffering from insufficient competition, particularly in broadband, he later told the Herald.

He stopped short of saying he would regulate for Telecom to provide wholesale access, but said calls for regulation would be " inevitable" if the telco did not act.

Consumers felt the lack of competition in higher prices, in a limited range of products and in only one or two service providers, Webb said.

There were only two cures for the problem.

One was a new player building a new fixed national network that provided home phones. "I see no chance that is going to happen."

The second was a market where companies that wanted to contest the retail side of pricing and services could access Telecom's network, which grew out of a state-owned monopoly.

"What I am arguing is, yes, Telecom is wholesaling limited access to its competitors. It's doing this partly because it thinks it's good business but partly because it's been told to under the regulatory regime.

"It's a pretty limited form of response. Telecom works very hard not to do more than it has to."

"Its best future lies in an open and competitive market," Webb told the conference.

Telecom general manager, government and industry relations Bruce Parkes, said Webb's call was "mystifying".

"We have taken a positive approach to our regulatory responsibilities.

"We've said this is what we need to do, let's get stuck in and do it. He says we've done not too bad a job but his criticism was that we hadn't gone beyond the law, gone further than our legal responsibilities, and we find that rather mystifying."

Telecom was investing $1 billion over the next five years upgrading its voice network to carry video, Parkes said.

"What we need is a regulatory regime that is stable and has clear expectations. We can't have rules being chopped and changed."