Commission Says Mobile Roaming Regulation Still Important To Competition

The Commerce Commission has decided to retain its ability to regulate national mobile roaming, saying it remains an important regulatory backstop for promoting competition in mobile telecommunications markets for the benefit of New Zealanders.

National roaming allows customers of one mobile network to use another mobile network when they are outside their own provider’s coverage area.

Telecommunications Commissioner, Tristan Gilbertson, says the Commission has decided to leave existing obligations in place following consultation on whether there were reasonable grounds for considering their removal. 

“Coverage is a critical feature of being able to offer competitive mobile services at the retail level and national roaming is a valuable regulatory backstop against which commercial negotiations for wholesale access can take place,” Mr Gilbertson says.

“National roaming has been critical to the development of the New Zealand mobile market and to enabling 2degrees, in particular, to provide services across the country as it progressively built out its own national mobile network.

“At this stage, we don’t consider the telecommunications market has developed to such an extent that roaming regulation is no longer necessary to safeguard new entry and promote competitive outcomes in the market,” Mr Gilbertson says.

Background

National mobile roaming is a specified service under the Telecommunications Act 2001 (the Act).

This means that each of the country’s three mobile network operators (2degrees, Spark, and One NZ) must negotiate and agree to provide wholesale access to their networks for a period of time to any new network operator.

This regulation enables a new operator to quickly expand its coverage beyond its own initial physical network.

Network operators are only required to make their networks available to access seekers who meet certain conditions, including having a network of at least 100 cell sites or having a network that covers at least 10% of the New Zealand population.

Under the Act, the Commission is required once every five years to consider the deregulation of certain services, including national roaming.

The Commission retains the discretion to initiate a review of mobile roaming should it consider this necessary at any point prior to the next scheduled five-year review.

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