The Commerce Commission is seeking feedback on its quarterly and annual telecommunications market monitoring reports. These reports aim to give a broad indication of what progress has been made towards achieving competitive prices for telecommunications services.

Commerce Commission Director of Telecommunications Osmond Borthwick said, "The Commission has been producing telecommunications market monitoring reports for nearly two years now so it is timely to review what improvements could be made to these reports. The Commission is interested in feedback from any parties who use the information available in the reports."

"In looking at any potential changes to the information collected for the reports, the Commission is mindful of the need to minimise compliance costs for industry, yet at the same time to collect sufficient information to fulfil the Commission's monitoring role under the Telecommunications Act," said Mr Borthwick.

The letter seeking consultation on telecommunications sector monitoring can be accessed through the Commission's website under Monitoring and Reporting.

Feedback should be emailed to telco@comcom.govt.nz by 21 November 2008.

Background

In response to amendments to the Telecommunications Act to require the Commission to undertake telecommunications sector monitoring and information dissemination, the Commission has been producing various sector monitoring reports on a regular basis. In particular, the Commission has produced six telecommunications key statistics quarterly reports, the first being for the December 2006 quarter, and has produced one annual telecommunications market monitoring report for 2007. These can be accessed on the Commission's website under Monitoring and Reporting.

In addition, two quarterly reports on broadband quality have been produced by Epitiro and IDC for the Commission. The broadband reports are evolving as more information becomes available, so the Commission is not seeking feedback on the broadband reports at this stage.

The Commission has stated in its section 9A guidelines that, in discharging its monitoring function, its principal roles are to:

  • assess the impact of regulation in segments of the telecommunication markets that are regulated;
  • monitor for indications of competition problems in unregulated segments of telecommunication markets;
  • generally track whether telecommunication markets in New Zealand are functioning efficiently and identify any obstacles to efficient markets; and
  • report on progress over time in developing more efficient markets.