New Zealand’s competition enforcement and regulatory agency, The Commerce Commission, has made a draft decision that the country’s largest telecommunications infrastructure provider, Chorus, should upgrade its capacity as needs grow so that retail telecommunications companies and consumers can continue to make best use of the capacity of copper lines.
The commission’s draft decision in its review of the non-price features of the Unbundled Bitstream Access (UBA) service was released on Wednesday.
The purpose of the review is to clarify the service requirements in the Standard Terms Determination (STD) for the UBA to ensure that the regulated service remains suitable for a range of general internet uses.
Regulated UBA provides one way of supplying broadband services, allowing retail telecommunications companies to provide internet services over Chorus’ local copper network without the need to install their own equipment in exchanges. The UBA STD sets the terms of the service that Chorus must offer to retail companies.
{loadposition peter}Under the current UBA STD, Chorus must offer the regulated UBA service at the regulated price but is able, subject to notifying the commission, to offer commercial variants of UBA services at different prices.
Telecommunications Commissioner Dr Stephen Gale says the UBA STD was first released in 2007 and the commission is undertaking the review to ensure it remains fit for purpose.
“During our review, submitters generally agreed that the UBA STD should be updated to capture what Chorus is providing today, and continue to support consumer demand.
“In simple terms our draft decision is that Chorus should upgrade its capacity as needs grow so that retail telecommunications companies and consumers can continue to make best use of the capacity of the copper lines. This approach will enable retailers to continue to offer competitive differentiated broadband products over copper lines.
“Although the UFB footprint is expanding rapidly, the copper network will remain an important delivery platform for a significant portion of the population in the near future.”
Dr Gale says the Commission’s current view is to exempt around 19,000 lines in Chorus’ remote legacy ATM network from the proposed service standards, and assess the need of another section 30R review when it is clear where the second phase of rural broadband initiative funding will be targeted.
“We will require Chorus to report on the congestion levels on the UBA network and its plans to relieve the congestion where the network is nearing capacity. This should provide useful clarity for retailers and consumers.”
A copy of the commission’s draft decision can be found on the commission’s website.
Submissions on the draft decision close at on 30 November.