No longer possible to have phone and DSL with different providers?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › No longer possible to have phone and DSL with different providers?

Detruire

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Uber Geek

#154081 17-Oct-2014 12:19

My parents recently received an email from Slingshot that says that this [having separate DSL and analogue phone providers] won't be possible from December onwards.

Has anyone else heard anything about this or know what's going on?

The email states:

Hi there,

There are some important changes happening around the way ISPs and homeline providers charge customers for services.

Essentially, from December 1, you won’t be able to have your homeline with one provider, and your broadband with another.

This is because industry changes mean broadband providers will start paying their supplier for both your broadband and homeline rental fees.

So, what does this mean for you?

You’ll need to choose a plan that bundles both broadband and homeline together.

[plan details]

Just give the team a call on 0800 89 6000 and we’ll move you onto the best plan for you. And yes – you can keep your phone number.

Thanks!

The team @ Slingshot

rm *

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Uber Geek

#1156817 17-Oct-2014 13:52

I'm keen to find out more about this, because for us this is an unacceptable solution owing to the fact that phone and Internet services are administered by different people.

We're stuck with Telecom for phone services because that's the way things have always been done, and the bill payer refuses to change. I pay the Internet bill, and should be free to change services as I see fit. I don't want phone services at all. The total bill for the line may be lower, but you're also potentially losing the benefits that come with your existing provider. May ISPs aren't offering free local calls for example.

If this is true, will the same apply to mixed fibre/copper installations? Can I move my fibre services without fear that my copper line is going to get disconnected in the process?

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johnr

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#1156821 17-Oct-2014 14:03

Vodafone home phone wireless

hio77

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#1156824 17-Oct-2014 14:05

Interesting.

so naked only providers are going to be hurt a little by this i guess..

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ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#1156825 17-Oct-2014 14:08

SirHumphreyAppleby: May ISPs aren't offering free local calls for example.

Really? I'd be very surprised if any major ISP is charging for local calls.

BigPipeNZ

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#1156858 17-Oct-2014 14:56

hio77: Interesting.

so naked only providers are going to be hurt a little by this i guess..

not really, since we wouldn't expect our customers to have landlines with another provider anyway, so it won't make a difference to us (aport from adding a little complexity to the process when someone wants to port their landline to VOIP when they move to Bigpipe)

the guys who will be really hurt will be the ones who advertise low price points for broadband where the small print states that pricing only applies when you have landline with another provider.

e.g. www.unlimitedinternet.co.nz

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Detruire

1767 posts

Uber Geek

#1156859 17-Oct-2014 14:56

hio77: Interesting.

so naked only providers are going to be hurt a little by this i guess..

Naked DSL is different to having DSL + analogue phone, but with different providers, eg: phone with Telecom, DSL with Slingshot.

According to the Bigpipe rep, NDSL isn't affected.

rm *

quentinreade

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2degrees

#1156860 17-Oct-2014 14:57

Hi guys,
Apologies in advance for the long post.
Chorus details pasted below.
In essence the POTS charges will now be moved and lumped in with the broadband rental charges.
So if you have a broadband only service, your supplier will probably be paying more for the rental than you are getting charged.
The email probably oversimplifies the issue in an attempt to explain it.
The options for an ISP which provides a customer with a broadband only services are:
- try and get the customer onto a bundled product (this is what we are doing - and as you all know, bundles are (almost always) the cheapest way to go these days)
- charge customers more for broadband only (not ideal for anyone)
- make a loss on the product (CFO not so keen on this)
Cheers, Quentin

Implementation and pricing changes as a result of the Commission's UBA Initial Pricing Principle
Informer 218: 1 October 2014
This is a summary of the high level changes that follow the implementation of the Commerce Commission's UBA Initial Pricing Principle Decision (UBA IPP) that come into effect on 1 December 2014.

What's happening?

The Commerce Commission’s UBA IPP will result in a number of changes to the way you are charged for UBA and voice services effective 1 December 2014.

Historically the voice line, or POTS, was the primary service for an end-user’s telecommunication needs, but this is changing as increasingly end-users are choosing to deliver their voice and broadband services over a UBA connection. As such, UBA becomes the primary service.

Chorus is also making some changes to UBA and Baseband credits and removing the urban/rural price distinction for our UCLL, SLU and SLES services.

What's the detail?

UBA IPP change summary

There are a number of changes to the way we price and credit against core services as a result of the UBA IPP. These will be effective 1 December 2014:

A single, monthly rental charge for UBA, irrespective of whether it’s taken on its own or with voice services
A new, single monthly rental charge that is the aggregate of the geographically averaged UCLL charge and the additional UBA cost determined under the UBA IPP
Where both UBA and Baseband, or UCLFS, are taken together, the monthly rental charge for the Baseband or UCLFS service will be priced at $0. This will be achieved through a bulk credit on the same bill for these lines
Where UBA, and Baseband IP Extended are taken together, the monthly rental charge will have the Baseband IP Extended uplift charge of $2.75 added
The implementation of a four tier connection charge model for UBA services. Note that when UBA and Baseband, or UCLFS, are ordered at the same time only the UBA connection charge will apply
Business and residential voice services

Spark have advised us of their intent to make changes to their resold POTS prices when taken with, or ordered at the same time, as UBA as a consequence of the changes to the Baseband pricing. As Chorus bills resold POTS under agency for Spark, we are proposing to apply a bulk credit, on behalf of Spark, to reflect their revised prices.
Credit removal

We will remove monthly credits for UBA and Baseband Copper that were introduced on 1 December 2011 and scheduled to apply for three years. The credits applied to:

Instances of Access Seeker Voice existing prior to 30 November 2011 and those lines that RSPs nominated for migration and have subsequently migrated have been charged the de-averaged monthly rental equivalent to the SLU and SLES price at separation
Instances of UBA without POTS existing prior to 30 November 2011 and those existing lines that subsequently become UBA without POTS have been charged the de-averaged monthly rental equivalent to the UBA without POTS price at separation.
Urbanisation removal

As outlined in the UBA IPP we will remove the urban/rural pricing distinction for our UCLL, SLU and SLES services.

Comms chap

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hio77

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#1156866 17-Oct-2014 15:02

Ah, makes a bit more sense now.

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BigPipeNZ

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#1156867 17-Oct-2014 15:02

Detruire:
hio77: Interesting.

so naked only providers are going to be hurt a little by this i guess..

Naked DSL is different to having DSL + analogue phone, but with different providers, eg: phone with Telecom, DSL with Slingshot.

According to the Bigpipe rep, NDSL isn't affected.

Yep (AFAIK!)

The price for naked DSL already includes the 'voice' component of the copper anyway, so it won't change as a result of this specific change.

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rb99

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#1156952 17-Oct-2014 16:18

I'm on a standard Spark landline / adsl plan at the moment, but will hopefully move onto some kind of naked fibre / VoIP plan in 2 or 3 months. From what you guys say, it won't make any difference unless I actually keep the POTS line ? Was thinking of maybe joining UnlimitedInternet, would I / they also be unaffected unless I keep the POTS line, bearing in mind what Bigpipe said earlier ?

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rb99

Detruire

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#1156991 17-Oct-2014 17:34

rb99: I'm on a standard Spark landline / adsl plan at the moment, but will hopefully move onto some kind of naked fibre / VoIP plan in 2 or 3 months. From what you guys say, it won't make any difference unless I actually keep the POTS line ? Was thinking of maybe joining UnlimitedInternet, would I / they also be unaffected unless I keep the POTS line, bearing in mind what Bigpipe said earlier ?

You're with Spark for phone and DSL at the moment? If so, this doesn't affect you for now.

It will prevent you from staying with Spark for your POTS line and using Unlimited Internet for DSL, but it won't affect you if you would be ditching POTS+DSL in favour of VoIP over NDSL.

rm *

chevrolux

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#1157089 17-Oct-2014 19:07

I'm trying to get my head around this....

So is the only thing changing the actual billing process on Chorus's end?

Is the UBA product still just a product that can be provisioned on a copper line that already has a POTS service on it? And does the UBA service still stay separate from the POTS?

If it becomes dependant on the POTS line, porting number's away to VoIP providers is going to be an absolute nightmare!!

Yabanize

2350 posts

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#1157093 17-Oct-2014 19:17

BigPipeNZ:
hio77: Interesting.

so naked only providers are going to be hurt a little by this i guess..

not really, since we wouldn't expect our customers to have landlines with another provider anyway, so it won't make a difference to us (aport from adding a little complexity to the process when someone wants to port their landline to VOIP when they move to Bigpipe)

the guys who will be really hurt will be the ones who advertise low price points for broadband where the small print states that pricing only applies when you have landline with another provider.

e.g. www.unlimitedinternet.co.nz

*Cough cough the certain new ISP that uses the price for when you have a landline with another provider to make it look cheaper

Also not too sure but I think in reality very few people have their landline and internet with different providers except for voip

richms

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#1157139 17-Oct-2014 20:25

Glad to see this weird anomaly of billing is getting sorted out finally.

Richard rich.ms

smarsden

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#1157555 18-Oct-2014 17:11

I received this notification a few days ago too, and was equally confused by it.

Although the explanation given clarifies the business logic behind why it's being done, this has the potential to actually end up in our case costing us more per month.

We currently have homeline with Spark, with two Spark mobiles attached on their open term OneBill plan, at only $19 per month per mobile. Broadband being supplied by Slingshot.

From what I've started working out so far, it looks like in order for us to keep the Open Term flexibility we have with our mobiles, while also keeping our current Slingshot email address, we have to move our homeline to Slingshot, but then might also have to change to a different mobile plan with Spark. This will probably cost more since I think the price-point we're getting on mobile currently with Spark is only because our homeline is with them also.

I see that Slingshot offer Spark mobile too, but they seem to have limited plan options and they also require signing up to a 24 month contract (not what we want).

If we went other way, and moved everything over to Spark, we'd lose our Slingshot email address which we've had for 13 years...

Not an ideal situation whichever way I look at it really, and it's rather disappointing to have only a month-and-a-half's notice to get things sorted.

One question of course, is what would actually happen if we did nothing? There's no mention of that as an actual option in the email we received - is it possible? There is an implication that it might be possible in quentinreade's explanation response. Clarification would be good.

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