Telcos bristle at OECD uncomplimentary ranking

Telecommunications companies want the Ministry of Economic Development to change the way it reports an annual OECD survey that is increasingly uncomplimentary about New Zealand.

The ministry is meeting the companies this week to discuss the report, Benchmarking the Comparative Performance of New Zealand's Telecommunications Regime.

Last year's report ranked New Zealand 29 out of 30 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries on a value-for-money scale for cellphone usage and 24th out of 25 for broadband internet uptake.

The only category it scored highly related to free local landline calls, which are relatively uncommon worldwide.

"In general New Zealand's relative performance in most categories is unsatisfactory and typically there is a very significant gap between New Zealand pricing performance and the top half of the OECD countries," it said.

David Smol, the ministry's resources and networks branch deputy secretary, said some of the major telcos questioned the accuracy of the OECD results. They wanted what they said were New Zealand's unique features taken into account.

Smol said that although the ministry believed benchmarking methods such as the OECD's basket of services approach achieved a reasonable degree of accuracy at a reasonable cost, it recognised some modifications might be required for more accurate comparisons.

He asked the companies to point out where they thought comparisons were inaccurate and misleading.

Vodafone public policy manager Roger Ellis said the industry wanted to make sure Government reports "reflect all local New Zealand circumstances rather than import European-based commentary into New Zealand policy-making".

He said the OECD overestimated some of the prices for mobile services.

The cost of rolling out networks in flat, densely populated countries was different than in New Zealand, which had mountainous terrain and a sparse population to pay for the infrastructure, he said.

Ernie Newman, head of the Telecommunications Users Association, which will represent consumers at the meeting, said the current system wasn't broken.

"We reject the idea anything is fundamentally wrong with the OECD approach.

"The phone companies are trying to fudge the issues and save themselves the embarrassment of reports which show them in a poor light," Newman said.