Landline Competition Improving Says NZ Regulator - Mobile Unaffected

New Zealand's Commerce Commission has released its 2008 telecommunications monitoring report which notes that while there has been increased competition within the country's landline market, the mobile market has been largely unaffected.

Telecommunications Branch Director Osmond Borthwick said, "2008 was another year of positive change for New Zealand telecommunications markets with the successful introduction of local loop unbundling and strong growth in the broadband market."

Approximately $1.5 billion was spent on telecommunications related capital investment in the 2007/08 financial year, much of it by Telecom to replace existing assets, but also by NZ Communications in rolling out the first stage of their mobile network.

The report noted that despite some positive developments in the mobile services market, the competitive environment remains relatively unchanged from previous years. The entry of a third operator, NZ Communications, into the market and Telecom's launch of its new 3G network later in 2009 are likely to drive further competition in the mobile market.

Mobile phone usage continues to increase. By 30 September 2008, mobile phone penetration had reached 108 per cent of the population. Mobile calling minutes increased by 16 per cent for the 2007/08 financial year.

Vodafone's Base plans, formerly excluded from the Commission's monitoring reports, are now clearly available to mobile users. Consequently these plans have now been included in the OECD benchmarking of New Zealand's mobile calling plans. Their inclusion significantly improves the average New Zealand performance across all baskets from 127 per cent of the OECD average cost to 84 percent.

However, New Zealand's mobile calling volumes as a percentage of total calling volumes still remain low by international standards, making up only one quarter of total calling minutes compared to at least one third to one half in comparable countries.

The 2008 report is available on the Commission's website under Industry Regulation /Telecommunications/MonitoringandReporting.

 

Posted to the site on 14th April 2009