Minister of Communications David Cunliffe has just held a press conference in which he has presented the Determination for the Operational Separation of Telecom. And, it appears it really is to be Operational Separation – not a government buy-back of access network as hinted in today’s Dominion Post. This was a point made quite clear by the Minister in his opening comments to the media “there is no deal to sell off Telecom’s network.”
So, operational separation it will be, and a rigorous timetable of compliance has been set for Telecom. The telco has 20 days to prepare its draft plan for public comment, it must meet its “key organisational change requirements” by March 31 2008 and it has four years to ensure all UBA and LLU services to be EOI (Equivalent Of Inputs) compliant. In other words by 2011, Telecom and its competitors should have exactly the same access to its copper – and fibre – network.
Minister Cunliffe said that he has been in close telephone contact with Telecom’s new CEO Paul Reynolds and that he welcomes the company’s cooperation in enacting the changes imposed by this Determination. A sign of Telecom’s goodwill can no doubt be read into that fact that the head of external media public affairs (ie chief spokesperson) Mark Watts was present at the conference. As was TUANZ CEO Ernie Newman who has outlined this organisation’s position in a Downstream post.
A (very) brief summary would be that the Determination is based on the BT model, with a high-level watchdog group in place to ensure Telecom’s competitors will get equal access to both its legacy and NGN networks.
Of course the devil’s the detail and you can read the full 70-page Determination on the MED website.
In the meantime I’m hoping to get an interview with Telecom COO Mark Ratcliffe later on today to find out what this Determination will mean for company’s NGN plans.