New Zealand Mobile Costs Too High by International Standards
New Zealand's Commerce Commission has released its 2007 telecommunications monitoring report analysing the state of New Zealand telecoms markets. The report also benchmarks the performance of the New Zealand telecommunications markets against OECD data.
Telecommunications Commissioner Dr Ross Patterson said the report shows that there are signs of increasing competition during 2007 in most of the telecommunications markets analysed, with average retail prices falling over all sectors, apart from monthly line rentals.
Dr Patterson said, “The Commission’s monitoring of telecommunications markets has revealed improvements in New Zealand’s performance, partly in response to the recent regulatory reforms. However, many key markets are still characterised by limited competition. The Commission’s telecommunications strategy is designed to increase competition in these markets with targeted intervention, and to ensure that competition is sustainable in the longer term.”
The report said that mobile phone connections rose by 12 percent during the year and by 31 December 2007, mobile penetration had reached 104 percent. Mobile calling minutes increased by 15 percent for the 2006/07 financial year, although average mobile calling per user remains relatively low by international standards.
The introduction of new calling plans has benefitted some mobile users, particularly through cheaper calls to selected users on the same network, but OECD benchmarking indicates others are still paying high prices by international standards.
There was considerable progress towards new entry in the mobile market, with NZ Communications (formerly Econet) starting to build its own network and signing a roaming agreement with Vodafone NZ. However, there was slow progress with mobile co-location. In addition, mobile-to-mobile termination rates for calls and texts appear to be above cost, which the report said may hinder the development of competition in the mobile market.
The full report can be downloaded from the ComCom website.
Posted to the site on 10th April 2008