Verizon-Frontier deal receives judge’s disapproval (USA)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The state regulators have been advised by administrative law judge Lisa M Tapia to disapprove Verizon’s deal to divest operations in 14 states to Frontier Communications in a USD8.6 billion deal.
The deal will see fixed line service for a total of 4.8 million customers change hands. The deal was agreed between the two parties in May 2009 but the regulatory approval was awaited for the best part of a year.
According to Tapia, evidence presented in the case in front of the Illinois Commerce Commission did not support the sale because the transaction would leave Frontier too laden with debt to be able to properly manage the lines and other infrastructure.
Frontier’s ability to provide adequate, reliable, efficient, safe and least-cost public utility service will also be diminished by the proposed re-organization.
New Zealand’s Commerce Commission considers 4G network
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With the aim to meet the 4G needs of the country, New Zealand’s Commerce Commission (ComCom) has announced that it is ready to deploy single, open access, Long Term Eolution (LTE) network.
According to Rob Spray, chairman of the Telecommunications Industry Group, in the saturated market of New Zealand, individual LTE networks would be impractical and even the deployment of a single network could double the number of base transmission stations in the country, from 2,500 to 5,000.Rob Spray was the first to raise the idea of a shared network in December 2009.
Even Ernie Newman, chief executive of the Telecom Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ), expressed his consent to the idea of a single network, but emphasized the need to guarantee open access.
Telecom NZ admit breaching Fair Trading Act
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Telecom New Zealand has admitted that it breached the Fair Trading Act as it mislead more than 130,000 broadband customers. The admission was made in a settlement with the Commerce Commission.
A broadband internet service was launched by Telecom NZ in 1999, offering its existing dial-up customers the opportunity to migrate to broadband, although these customers would continue to have a dial-up connection, but would not be charged. But customers who took up the offer between 1999 and 2006 continued to be billed monthly account charges for dial-up due to some administrative errors.
After admitting the breach of Fair Trading Act, from March 2007 Telecom began refunding the affected customers and writing to all those customers to advise them of the error. The company extended full co-operation in the investigation carried out by Commission. It also undertook a costly internal exercise to refund all affected customers.
It is not for the first time that the company has been acted in breach of the Fair Trading Act. Since 2003 Telecom has been the subject of Fair Trading Act convictions, settlements or warnings on at least eight occasions. The Commission encouraged Telecom to make compliance with the Act a top priority.
Lower mobile termination rates proposed by Vodafone & Telecom NZ
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Commerce Commission received proposals from Vodafone New Zealand and Telecom NZ on lower mobile termination rates. Since late 2008, the commission has been looking at whether to regulate the tariffs and the entry of a third operator on the market, 2degrees.
Telecom’s proposal will experience a drop of 12 cents of minutes in rate until the end of 2010 and the per-second billing introduced form 1 April 2010. By 2012, the rate will come down to 10 cents in 2011, 9 cents in 2010, 8 cents in 2013 and 6 cents in 2014.
Vodafone will try the same price cuts but from October 2010 as under the current proposal, Vodafone risks of losing around NZD 50 million in revenues. The Commerce Commission will make the recommendations to the ICT ministry in February.
New Zealand Commission to investigate mobile market
The New Zealand Commerce Commission has considered barriers to entry to the cellular services market and will be investigating possible changes to the regulatory framework. According to Telecommunications Commissioner Douglas Webb, the Commission has been concerned for some time that New Zealanders are paying too much for mobile voice calls, and that New Zealand has low mobile usage vs other OECD countries. According to Webb, the Commission believes the current regulatory settings may not be generating enough incentives for entry to occur. The Commission will inquire into amending the terms of the national roaming service; moving the national roaming service from a specified to a designated service; and
moving the co-location service from a specified to a designated service. The Commission will also commence a Schedule 3 investigation into whether or not to amend the co-location service.
Source- http://www.telecompaper.com
