Commission recommends deregulating Spark’s resale copper

The Commerce Commission has today released a draft report indicating its intention to recommend that Spark’s resale copper voice services be deregulated.

“As fibre and other next generation services have become available across New Zealand, consumers are making the switch away from legacy copper-based voice services. Other providers offer wholesale voice services that compete with these services meaning regulation is no longer necessary,” Telecommunications Commissioner Dr Stephen Gale said.

In 2016 the Commission completed an investigation into deregulating Spark’s three resale voice services. The Commission’s recommendation to the Minister of Communications was to not deregulate and to defer the decision for two years. At the time, it was concerned whether competitive alternatives to Spark's resale services were available and that retailers’ ability to switch to these alternatives was constrained.

“Over two years have passed since our 2016 investigation. We have revisited our recommendation using updated information and our draft view after our analysis is that we now consider regulation is no longer required to help promote competition. We consider that competition has been established, is increasingly effective, and is no longer dependent on access to these services.,” Dr Gale said.

Submissions on our draft report close on Monday 17 May 2019.

The Commission expects to provide its final report and recommendation to the Minister in July 2019.

The draft report and related information can be found here.

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