On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 18:24 +1200, Jeremy Brooking wrote:

I had seen this, but I was wondering if there was any noise anywhere as to what kind of time frame, if any, was around this.

It sounds good... unless theres no requirement for them to do this before 2080 (As I plan on being dead by then)

According to David Cunliff (On Campbell Live) two to three years.. (Two for citys' three for rural)... But how long will Telecom take this through the Court's for.

On 3/05/2006, at 7:43 PM, Tony Wicks wrote:

...

In my view the Government have continued to duck the real issue - structural separation in telecoms. I am disappointed, that with all the evidence available (eg. British Telecom structural separation [voluntary]) , the Government have just fiddled at the edges of the problem, hoping that would make it all OK. If I was in Telecom NZ I would be celebrating tonight -- Telecom NZ still have control over vertical markets. Accounting separation will not suffice -- many recent examples have shown that accounting practices cannot save us!

Neil

Actually, if you read it ( I am lothe to defend the government, but ...)

Key features of the final package Facilitating competition by improving access at the wholesale level to the fixed local-loop telecommunications network, through:

* introducing local loop unbundling; * removing constraints on the regulated Unbundled Bitstream Service, including providing for “Naked DSL”; * requiring the preparation by Telecom of a set of regulatory accounts (accounting separation) based around its wholesale businesses; and * the preparation and disclosure by access providers of information to facilitate compliance with the applicable access principles set out in Schedule 1 of the Telecommunications Act 2001.

Points 2 and three are significant.

Long experience in this has led me to doubt the implementation. As I indicated in my first post on this I am skeptical about what the accounting separation will actually achieve. Telecom are very experienced in manipulation of accounting -- how else could their figures on the cost of services be so at odds with others? the wriggle room is just too large. Neil _____________________________________________ Neil James, Information Technology Strategy and Policy Consultant & Executive Officer, New Zealand Vice-Chancellors' Committee Standing Committee on Information Technology (SCIT) c/o University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. Tel (03) 479-8594 Mobile 021 393-123 FAX (03)479-8577

Jordan Carter wrote:

It might be worth noting that the govt's decisions include the following:

The Cabinet "agreed that operational and structural separation are options on which the government is prepared to consider the evidence, and agreed to encourage the select committee to seek submissions on those options".

This does put separation on the table. That's better than it not being there. It wouldn't be there at all if they weren't prepared to seriously consider it.

I guess we have another bite at pushing the point when the legislation goes before Parliament...

While I share Neil's scepticism to some extent (must have something to do with age :) I think what the government had done is to hand Telecom a length of rope (Neil's wiggle room) and said to them "You can use this like good corporate citizens or use it to hang yourself with -- the choice is yours". When faced with just this choice BT *chose* structural separation and by all accounts are doing very well. Look for a review of progress before the next election. Russell

N James wrote:

In my view the Government have continued to duck the real issue - structural separation in telecoms. I am disappointed, that with all the evidence available (eg. British Telecom structural separation [voluntary]) , the Government have just fiddled at the edges of the problem, hoping that would make it all OK. If I was in Telecom NZ I would be celebrating tonight -- Telecom NZ still have control over vertical markets. Accounting separation will not suffice -- many recent examples have shown that accounting practices cannot save us!

------------------- "We are continuing to look at whether additional measures are warranted, such as the structural separation of Telecom's retail and lines operations," Mr Cunliffe said. " ------------------ They haven't ruled it out. This is a huge step on from the previous position. If I was in Telecom, I wouldn't be celebrating - I'd be wondering when the other shoe will drop. In the Cabinet paper,(http://www.beehive.govt.nz/Documents/Files/Copy%20of%20Cabinet%20Paper%20and... - beware 3MB PDF of scanned pages [sigh]), Option 3 is _Separation_of_Telecom_: "There are a variety of possible forms of separation ranging from accounting separation through to ownership and operational separation, which essentially involve the splitting of an organisation's assets and service delivery functions into separate wholesale and retail operations. Structural separation of an incumbent telecommunications company is one of the more interventionist measures that a government can take to address discriminatory behaviour. The advantages of structural separation are likely to be a reduction or removal of the incentives for a vertically integrated company to discriminate and a reduction of anti-competitive behaviour. The key disadvantage of this approach are one-off restructuring costs, potential loss of economies of scale and scope, and a long implementation time frame. In the short term, this option may lead to increased prices for end-users. Further detailed analysis, commencing this year, is recommended in conjunction with increased monitoring of sector behaviour, in light of other measures proposed in this paper, before deciding whether this option is warranted." In other words, it's a step too far for this government to undertake _at_this_time_ but it's on the table and they're not saying they won't consider it in the future, and are going to be actively monitoring the changes to determine if it's warranted. While I personally agree that separation of Telecom is vital in the long run, the package announced will go some way to address the problems within the sector. I suspect that time will show that actual separation is required, given previously observed behaviour by Telecom. You'd hope they'd learn from BT's experience, but no, same old FUD on the news tonight. cheers Mark Harris (speaking in a personal capacity)