Commerce Commission assessing Telecom’s compliance

Telecommunications Act: Commerce Commission assessing Telecom’s compliance information

The Commerce Commission is analysing information received from Telecom New Zealand Limited as the Commission carries out its annual assessment of Telecom’s performance in complying with the telecommunications service obligations (TSO) instrument.

Manager of the Commission’s Network Access Group, Osmond Borthwick , said that the Commission has advised the Minister of Communications that Telecom has complied with all but one of the service quality measures in the TSO instrument for the 2003/2004 financial year. The outstanding issue concerns line connect speeds for dial-up internet calls. The Commission is continuing to assess the state of compliance relating to the line connect speeds standard.

Each year, Telecom is required to provide the Commission with information on its compliance with the service quality measures in the TSO instrument. The Commission reviews Telecom’s compliance, and notifies Telecom and the Minister of Communications of any non-compliance.

Please note that this process is separate to the Commission’s conference on TSO last week. The conference related to the Commission’s calculation of Telecom’s net cost of complying with its TSO for the 2002/2003 period.

Telecommunications Act Background

The relevant TSO instrument is the TSO Deed for local residential telephone service dated December 19, 2001 between the Crown and Telecom. Under the Deed, Telecom agreed with the Crown that local residential telephone service would meet the local residential service quality measures in Part II of the Schedule to the Deed.

Section 80 Assessment of compliance with TSO instrument:

Not later than 60 working days after the end of each financial year of a TSP under a TSO instrument, the Commission must –
a) Assess the TSP’s compliance with the TSO instrument during that financial year in accordance with any process set out in the TSO instrument; and
b) Notify the TSP and the Minister in writing of any non-compliance by the TSP with the TSO instrument.

Measure 11.1 is defined in the TSO Deed as:

Line connect speed capacity for standard Internet calls

The measures (which apply for standard Internet calls from and after the second anniversary of the commencement date) are:

(a) 95% of all existing residential lines meet the 14.4 kps connect speed;

(b) 99% of all existing residential lines meet the 9.6 kps connect speed.

For the purposes of assessing Telecom's performance against these measures:

(c) an inability for an existing residential line to reach the kps connect speed measure arising from an event of force majeure or a specified matter beyond Telecom's reasonable control is to be disregarded;

(d) the measurement will consist of the application of a calibrated model to the installed local access plant records held by Telecom.

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