2degrees again a little sneaky on MTRs

You need to read the Homezone decision where Vodafone sought and obtained retail control (on a Bill & Keep basis) under the Telco Act. Apparently you are only being fed one side of the story. Also V & T clearly know what special deals they do for whom (including retail customers)- 2D obvioulsy doesn't.

[I'd like to see all deals made public where possible. I've covered the local zone deal that the Commerce Commission brokered between Vodafone and Telecom, and the voluntary local zone agreement reached between 2degrees and Telecom Wholesale, in separate articles. The specific terms of each deal weren't made public. Happy to write more about the details if 2degrees, Telecom or Vodafone want to share - CK]

How dumb are we in New Zealand - we have a Com Com set up to protect the consumer and competition and pricing - we pay for its experts to monitor and regulate and then allow a government to intervene.

User pays was the old catch cry - Governmne stay out of Com Coms way - unecessary intervention is killing Kiwis pricing.

Governement ignore the threats of 2 large telcos wanting to keep profiteering.

Government - take the Com Coms regulations and recommnedations and stop intervening

Otherwise appoint a new industry watchdog with regulatory powers to benefit all Kiwis who are sick of paying for a bunch of experts who are not listened to.

You may as well close Com Com down and direct all regulation to the government if you will not adopt thier independent unlobbied view .

All the Govt does is encourage lobbying to lower the cost of productivity in this country by listening to profit taking companies that increase the base costs to do business in this country compared to others.

A true productivty focused government would want to reduce the costs of communicating and operating businesses toenable them to succeed - and more of them.

Better yet increase their funding to allow them to get real research to silence silenece the two telcos who spend copious amounts on lobbyng and politicising regulation

We all wnat regualtion id the power and telco industries - theyve had their chance and blown it.

The facts are we shouldnt be paying termination rates we cant afford to.

The two telcos concerned will have to get more efficient and comptete with more new entrants - if there prices go up we have a third option now and its already cheaper on prepay - significantly so!!

Great!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats the way the world is....

We need a commercial government that stops intervening and stops listening to lobbying or we will always be hamstrung by commercial companies out to rort Kiwis.

The whole drop the rate thing is probably almost entirely funded by 2degrees with Ernie Newman riding its coat tails to get more media headspace....Ask yourself what are the interests of each of the involved parties?

It is a clever move by 2 degrees as it superficially appears to place pressure on the Government to drop mobile interconnection rates... think abou this though - the whole thing also really bolsters 2degrees publicly perceived position as the mobile market underdog. The participation of the Telecommunications Users Association, Federated Farmers, the Students' Association, union Unite and the Federation of Maori Authorities (most of whom dont have two nickels to rub together to fund this or pay for a PR firm of Exceltium's stature) adds to their credibility.

That 2degrees are probably funding the entire exercise is conveniently not discussed and was hushed up at the lobby group's "launch" yesterday when the issue was rightly raised by journalists

Spinning figures is one thing, but mis-representing numbers comparing international interconnect rates, makes the group pretty questionable if not shonky.

Take their ploy of talking up countries with zero interconnect rate, they don't discuss the fact that in these countries most subscribers usually pay for BOTH incoming and outgoing SMS messages plus voice calls on some networks. Low value subscribers (like the very people 2Degrees are targetting) tend to be hit pretty hard by this approach...

The rates quoted are also grossly oversimplified The rates on the charts they were spinning on about seem to be for a 20 second call, which makes the NZ figure (which seems to be based on a per minute rate) look pretty costly. Steve Biddle on Geekzone http://www.geekzone.co.nz/sbiddle/6697 does a far more accurate job of comparing EU interconnect figures from January 2009 and paints a significantly different picture to what was talked up by these carpet baggers.

Biddle basically says that:

Using the above figures, MTR rates in New Zealand based on the current 15c per minute rate are very similar to those charged in EU countries. In some cases NZ MTR rates are even more competitive - A 3 minute call between 2 mobile numbers in Ireland would theoretically result in MTR costs of NZ$0.60c the same call in NZ is approximately NZ$0.45c.

Issues such as varying rates between carriers (e.g. in Ireland where Vodafone and O2 have interconnect rates that are slightly less than that of Meteor who were the 3rd player to enter the market) or the fact that MTR costs for Australia are also hard to accurately compare owing to have flag falls tariffs and 30c billing blocks which can't be directly compared have also been conveniently overlooked.

More seriously, In some countries MTR rates are billed on a per minute basis whilst others are billed on a per second basis. Using both on the same graph (including a per minute call in New Zealand is pretty misleading).

The whole thing reeks of a 2Degrees spin with them using a front organisation to push their own agenda......

Hey at least the drop your rates website works which is more than I can sday about 2Degrees rubber band and carboard powered effort....

In the USA, the MTR is pretty much out the picture and yes you pay for minutes incoming AND outgoing. However I think it important to point out the size of the bundles 5000 total minutes for about $USD100/month. Effectively the market has almost moved to flat plans of all you can eat for XYZ/month. The charge per minute has disappeared.

Why try to uncover all the agreements and make them public? Get rid of MTR and go flat rate, may the best SERVICE win.