Coalition Against Broadband Pricing Rules Launched

Thursday, 12 September 2013, 1:58 pm
Article: Hamish Cardwell

Coalition Against Broadband Pricing Rules Launched- 12 September 2013

Scoop Audio+Video+Photos

By Hamish Cardwell

A coalition of consumer advocates, telecomunciations companies and bloggers have called on the government to halt what they call a $600m tax on broadband customers.

*******

Consumer NZ chief executive and spokesperson for the Coalition For Fair Internet Pricing Sue Chetwin said the group was formed to oppose a proposal by Communications and IT Minister Amy Adams to which would lead to a transfer of $600m from firms and households to internet infrastructure provider Chorus.

She said the money was a subsidy for a profitable monopoly company and it would not lead to better services for the consumer.

People from the telecommunications industry and business had been under pressure not to join the group, she said.

Ms Chetwin said the group had released a study by Covec which had calculated that the $600m was a “conservative estimate.”

Read their press release here: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1309/S00131/broad-coalition-says-no-to-600-million-internet-tax.htm

Read their opening remarks here: Speech by Sue Chetwin

Read Covec report here: Telecommunications Act Review: Economic Issues

Additional Information: Media Q&A

*******

Click a link to play audio (or right-click to download) in either
MP3 format or in OGG format.

*******

ENDS

Top Scoops Headlines

COMMENT > >

Hadyn Green: TPP: This Is A Fight Worth Joining

Trade negotiations are tense affairs. There are always interested parties trying to get your ear, long nights spent arguing small but technical points, and the invisible but ever present political pressure. So it was in Brunei late August where the latest ... More>>

Ramzy Baroud: Giap, Wallace, And The Never-Ending Battle For Freedom

'Nothing is more precious than freedom,” is quoted as being attributed to Vo Nguyen Giap, a Vietnamese General that led his country through two liberation wars. The first was against French colonialists, the second against the Americans. More>>

John Chuckman: The Poor People Of Egypt

How is it that the people of Egypt, after a successful revolution against the repressive 30-year government of President Mubarak, a revolution involving the hopes and fears of millions and a substantial loss of life, have ended up almost precisely where ... More>>

Harvey Wasserman: 14,000 Hiroshimas Still Swing In The Fukushima Air...

Japan’s pro-nuclear Prime Minister has finally asked for global help at Fukushima. It probably hasn’t hurt that more than 100,000 people have signed petitionscalling for a global takeover; more than 8,000 have viewed a new YouTube on it. More>>

Suzan Mazur: A Fake? -- "America's Souvenir To The Iranian People"

The big thaw in US - Iran relations has been compromised. The world's leading authority on antiquities fakes -- long-time Metropolitan Museum of Art Ancient Near East expert Oscar White Muscarella, who excavated throughout the 1960s in Iran -- has told me ... More>>

William Blum: Anti-Empire Report #121: The War On Terrorism … Or Whatever

Pity the poor American who wants to be a good citizen, wants to understand the world and his country’s role in it, wants to believe in the War on Terrorism, wants to believe that his government seeks to do good … What is he to make of all this? More>>

Franklin Lamb: Four Decades After The Tishrin: War Self-Delusion

Is Damascus this weekend and many other areas of Syria, citizens will celebrate the accomplishments of the October 6, 1973 19 day war launched jointly by Syrian and Egyptian armies to regain Arab land illegally occupied in 1967. More>>