Otago Based Telco Welcomes Regulation Commitment

Media Release
For Immediate Release
Monday 12 September 2005

Otago Based Telco Welcomes Commitment To Regulation

North Otago based telecommunications' company CallSouth is welcoming a Labour party commitment to continue freeing up the market to increased competition – but says there's still work to be done.

Labour communications spokesperson Hon. David Cunliffe, launched the party's communications and IT policy this morning and will meet with CallSouth to discuss the implications of the policy in Oamaru this afternoon.

CallSouth chief executive Peter Roborgh says any move towards making it easier for smaller players to operate competitively in the telecommunications market is a step in the right direction.

"We certainly welcome all progress towards making it fairer for companies such as ours to compete on a level playing field," Peter Roborgh says.

"However, when New Zealand is compared with overseas markets where small companies like CallSouth represent a huge portion of the telecommunications market – it does indicate that major players here are still not being forced to open up the market to an acceptable degree," he says.

Mr Roborgh says he's looking forward to sitting down with Minister Cunliffe this afternoon and talking through these and other issues, such as improved availability of high speed internet.

CallSouth is committed to offering New Zealanders the choice of a Kiwi owned and customer service focused telecommunications provider in a market traditionally dominated by big business, he says. CallSouth, which has been providing toll and internet packages to customers around the country for the past five years, recently launched a full suite of landline services after it secured a deal enabling it to resell Telecom's line rental and associated services.

CallSouth's line services include line rental, answer-phone, call-holding, fax switching, and caller-id.

100% Kiwi owned and run, CallSouth was set up in October 2000 to offer a choice of better value tolls and internet related services to New Zealanders.

For information about CallSouth or its products visit www.callsouth.co.nz or phone 0508 66 88 77.

ENDS

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