Unregulated UBA services

Commission releases issues paper relating to its assessment of unregulated UBA services

The Commerce Commission today released an issues paper relating to its assessment of whether the two new unregulated UBA services, Boost HD and Boost VDSL, proposed by Chorus on 14 May, fall within the category of regulated UBA service.

The issues paper seeks to clarify Chorus’ proposed changes to the unbundled bitstream access (UBA) service and obtain views and information from industry participants for purposes of the assessment.

Chorus is proposing a number of changes to the UBA service, including:

Offering two new unregulated UBA services, Boost HD and Boost VDSL;
Withdrawing the regulated VDSL service; and
New bandwidth management settings for the regulated UBA service.

At a workshop the Commission held a few weeks ago, industry participants were concerned that Chorus’ proposed changes to the UBA services were unclear and may adversely impact consumers.

The Commission is seeking submissions on the Issues Paper to assist it with assessing Chorus’ proposal. Submissions are due on 15 July. Cross-submissions are due on 18 July.

Background

Unbundled bitstream access (UBA) is a service that allows telecommunications companies to supply broadband services to customers without the need to replicate Chorus' electronics or software.

Chorus is required to provide the Commission with Notice of any new unregulated UBA services (referred to as New UBA Variants) under clause 10 of the Standard Terms Determination for Chorus’ Unbundled Bitstream Access Service (UBA STD).

The Commission can then assess whether the proposed New UBA Variants fall within the existing UBA Service Description outlined in Schedule 1 of the UBA STD.

The last time the Commission assessed a New UBA Variant was in 2010 when Telecom proposed the Wholesale VDSL2 Service.

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