New Zealand’s Communications Minister Amy Adams announced a series of high-level policy decisions on the future regulation of the telecommunications sector that sets new direction for regulating broadband and phone services.
From 2020, the government wants to move to a framework for regulating copper and fibre services that is similar to the one used for utilities like electricity lines. This move aims to deliver the stability needed to support investment in high quality and affordable communications services for New Zealanders, the minister said.
The key decisions include moving to a utility-style model (with ‘building blocks’ pricing) for regulating wholesale services on the copper and UFB networks and considering ways to better support competition in the mobile market. It will also retain the current unbundling requirements to promote innovation on the UFB network from 2020. Any changes to the regulation of broadcasting infrastructure are ruled out.
The policy announcements are expected to contribute to the government’s target that by 2025, 99 percent of New Zealanders will have access to peak speeds of 50 Mbps, with the remainder will be able to access speeds of at least 10 Mbps.
Wholesale network operator Chorus welcomed the government's announcement and said it looks forward to participating in consultations planned to start later this year.
Spark also welcomed the news, in particular a review of wholesale broadband pricing. Spark said it supports the move to the utilities model of pricing and signaled this already in an initial review with the government last year. It noted that the mobile market was already "very competitive", with investment by all three operators in new technology and interest in sharing infrastructure.
