Unnecessary Proceedings A Throwback To Past Era

Unnecessary Proceedings A Throwback To Past Era

The Commerce Commission’s proceedings are unnecessary and a throwback to the old telecommunications regime, Telecom said today.

The Commerce Commission’s proceedings are unnecessary and a throwback to the old telecommunications regime, Telecom said today.

General Counsel Mark Verbiest said the proceedings related to data products that were put in the market in 1998.

“This is an historic issue and frankly we’re surprised it has reared its head now. The fact of the matter is that we have no outstanding disputes in relation to our data pricing with other carriers.

Mr Verbiest said the issue related to data services which had effectively been replaced by end-to-end data services which Telecom offered both on a retail basis and wholesale to competitors.

“Telecom continues to offer its data services to wholesale customers at a significant discount.

“The Commission appears to be saying that we dropped our prices too much.

“We intend to defend these proceedings and strongly believe what we did was right and pro-competitive for the industry.

“It’s very important to note that since this investigation was launched, the Telecommunications Act 2001 has introduced a whole new access regime which gives other carriers access to a broad range of wholesaled products. It gives greater certainty to all the players in the industry and avoids this sort of dispute.

“Last year the Commission ruled on wholesale arrangements for 98 services including a range of data services.

“As everyone knows we’re totally committed to making the regime work – including the recommendations for bitstream unbundling and partially unbundled circuits that the Commerce Commission has put forward,” Mr Verbiest said.

ENDS

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