Commission reports to Minister on Telecom
9 February 2006/099
Commission reports to Minister on Telecom's service obligations
The Commerce Commission completed its annual assessment of Telecom New Zealand Limited's performance in complying with the telecommunications service obligations (TSO) instrument for the 2004/2005 financial year.
The Commission has advised the Minister of Communications that Telecom has complied with the remaining service quality measurement concerning modem 'line connect speeds for dial-up internet calls'. The Commission had earlier advised the Minister of Telecom's compliance with other service quality measures in the TSO instrument.
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.
Telecommunications Act 2001 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 of the Act states:
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.
ENDS