InternetNZ welcomes Telecom plan

InternetNZ welcomes Telecom plan for industry consultation

"Today's letter to industry from Telecom, and the supportive media release
from the Telecommunications Commissioner, can and should be positive for the
Internet in New Zealand," said InternetNZ Executive Director Keith Davidson
today.

"We congratulate Telecom for this initiative as a tangible way of
demonstrating the new approach Telecom promised late last month.

Mr Davidson was commenting on the news today that Telecom wishes to work
with the industry to develop technical specifications, implementation plans
and deployment timetables for the services the government has decided to
regulate, as announced on 3 May 2006 (UBS/Naked DSL and LLU).

"As the legislation to reform the telecommunications carries on through this
year, it is a great idea to have the industry working with the Commissioner
to develop aspects of the new regulated services in an inclusive and
industry-wide manner." Keith Davidson said.

"This work if successful will seriously speed up the process of rolling out
the new services in 2007.

"To make this work, Telecom will need to table far more data about its
network reach and capability than it has done to date. They have committed
to doing this. Meeting this commitment will be a useful demonstration of the
newly cooperative approach announced by Telecom in response to the
government's regulatory package.

"InternetNZ, as a society committed to acting in the best interest of the
Internet community looks forward to participating in this process, and looks
forward to quick progress," concluded Keith Davidson.

ENDS

© Scoop Media