The Commerce Commission today published its draft 2024 report into the performance of Telecommunications Disputes Resolution (TDR) – the dispute resolution scheme established by the industry under the Telecommunications Act – assessing how well it’s serving the needs of Kiwi telecommunications users.

The Commission is required to review TDR every three years and Telecommunications Commissioner, Tristan Gilbertson, says the service it provides has improved considerably after implementing the recommendations the Commission made following the first review in 2021 – but there’s more work to be done.

“TDR has undergone a transformation over the last few years by improving its operations, boosting consumer awareness, covering more of the problems that matter to consumers and delivering faster resolution times,” Mr Gilbertson says.

“It’s been great to see TDR getting behind our recommendations and the improvements this has delivered for Kiwis – I encourage all consumers who run into an issue with their provider to make use of this service.”

Mr Gilbertson says the Commission’s second review has identified opportunities for improvements to bolster the progress made. As a result, the Commission has recommended further changes, with a focus on consumer awareness and greater independence of funding.

“It’s important that as many Kiwis as possible know where to go if they run into issues with their provider. MBIE’s NZ Consumer Survey shows TDR awareness has increased from 13% in 2022 to 20% now – but we want to see this higher.

“We also want to see TDR complete its journey to independence from industry by ensuring it has the financial resources to focus on fairly resolving issues for Kiwi telco users, rather than worrying about what the telcos are prepared to fund.”

Mr Gilbertson says these recommendations sit alongside the ongoing baseline challenge of identifying systemic issues and maximising membership of the scheme.

“We believe TDR is well placed to look across the industry and identify new and emerging systemic issues in the sector. This would allow industry to more effectively pre-empt developing areas of concern and head-off disputes.

“We’d also like to see an increase in TDR’s member-base to ensure as many Kiwis as possible have recourse to the industry dispute resolution scheme. Membership has increased by 54% over the past few years, but there’s room to grow this further, so that no one finds themselves locked out of the scheme when they need it most.”

Feedback on the draft recommendations can be sent to market.regulation@comcom.govt.nz with “TDR 2024” in the subject line, by Friday 29 November 2024 at 5pm.

Background

TDR was created more than a decade ago by industry body the New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF) to deal with complaints about mobile, internet, and landline services that consumers cannot resolve directly with their providers. It acts on behalf of consumers to resolve issues about products and services from TDR members. TDR is a free and independent service.

The Commission made a total of 24 recommendations to TDR following its first review in 2021. Most of these have been successfully implemented with the exception of identifying systemic issues which is why the Commission has resurfaced this as a priority.

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