On 12 December 2007, the Commerce Commission ("Commission") made a standard terms determination, under section 30M of the Telecommunications Act 2001 ("the Act"), in respect of the designated access service of Telecom's unbundled bitstream access (UBA) ("Decision 611").
Decision 611 has since been clarified on a number of occasions.
On 19 February 2010, the Commission commenced a review of the data transmission cost (a component of the UBA price) under section 30R of the Act.
During this inquiry, which is yet to be completed, the Commission considered that a much broader inquiry of
the UBA pricing methodology was required in order to assess the submissions made by the parties as part of the data cost review.
Section 30R of the Act provides that the Commission may, on its own initiative, commence a review, at any time,
of all or any of the terms specified in a standard
terms determination and requires public notice of the commencement of the review.
In this notice, the Commission gives public notice that it has commenced another review of UBA pricing set out in Decision 611 ("Review") that will include:
- how overage is treated;
- the ISP charge; and
- the avoided costs saved discount.
The Commission considers that this broader Review is not limited to the matters listed above and extends to include other UBA pricing components (or other related pricing matters) as considered necessary by the Commission for the purpose of giving effect to section 18 of the Act.
The Commission has not yet decided on a date for submissions on the Review for the purpose of section 30R(5)(c).
The Commission will give public notice of the closing date for submissions on the Review at a later date.
This Review will be conducted concurrently with the section 30R Review currently being undertaken by the Commission on the data transmission cost.
Further information about the review is available on the Commission's website
www.comcom.govt.nz/review-of-uba-data-costs-2/
Date Further Review Launched: 3 March 2011.
COMMERCE COMMISSION.