Fee to Return as a Telecom Customer

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Fee to Return as a Telecom Customer

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grant_k

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#301293 23-Feb-2010 00:22

NonprayingMantis: this. they either charge retial customers for a reconnect, or can't charge other providers when they want to connect a customers.

PhoenixNZ: There should be a little clarity on this one.

Regardless of whether you are connecting an existing line or simply moving your services back to Telecom, there is a connection fee. This is required of Telecom as if they started treating new line connections and winbacks seperately then they would be in trouble with the Comm Comm as it would be considered anti-competitive.

Thanks for explaining that guys.

It makes a bit more sense to me now. Kind of like Telecom is caught between a rock and a hard place on this one...

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Ragnor

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#301509 23-Feb-2010 14:56

Lets say you switch your land line and adsl from Snap to Slingshot (assume both services are provided over Telecom wholesale gear rather than LLU).

So Slingshot would pay a connection fee to Telecom Wholesale/Chorus, but Slingshot choose to absorb this cost rather than charge it to the customer?

So when switching your land line and adsl from Snap to Telecom Retail they to would pay a connection fee to Telecom Wholesale/Chorus (this makes sense given the structural seperation)... but you are saving Telecom Retail are not allow to absorb the cost?

It sounds more likely they have just chosen not to absorb the cost to me...

Either way connection fees are one of the factors you should always consider when choosing your provider.

What are the connection fees should be one of your first questions!

I believe if Telecom Retail say there is no connection fee and then say whoops there is a ~$50 connection fee after you've agreed to sign up... then that is clearly misleading and they should change their sales process.

pressF1

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#301526 23-Feb-2010 15:21

grant_k:
NonprayingMantis: this. they either charge retial customers for a reconnect, or can't charge other providers when they want to connect a customers.

PhoenixNZ: There should be a little clarity on this one.

Regardless of whether you are connecting an existing line or simply moving your services back to Telecom, there is a connection fee. This is required of Telecom as if they started treating new line connections and winbacks seperately then they would be in trouble with the Comm Comm as it would be considered anti-competitive.

Thanks for explaining that guys.

It makes a bit more sense to me now. Kind of like Telecom is caught between a rock and a hard place on this one...

Hmm, not so sure about that. Under seperation all retail providers incur the same costs to Telecom Wholesale (do they not) so if a retail provider wishes to charge or not charge for connections etc then they simply need to show that they are not selling the whole service below cost. That doesn't mean just the install but the whole thing...i.e. if you take a 12 month contract or longer and they make a profit out of that over the term then it is not predatory or anti-competitive. More over if the connection is wholesaled and intact there is no need for any jumpering changes we are talking about a change to a billing relationship....bit like your bank charging you $2 to do an online bil payment, you did the work and get charged for it...but that's what the goverment has set under seperation so there you go.

ahmad

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#304640 5-Mar-2010 00:15

Wow I just signed up a family member to Actrix to take advantage of their free dial-up if you have homeline with them offer.

I had no idea that if they go back to Telecom Homeline that it will cost $53 to go back! What the hell?

So it's $53 to go back to Telecom and yet it cost nothing to change to Actrix? How would it "anti-competitive" for Telecom to not charge a win-back $53??

Here's another discrepancy I learned of recently. It costs $53 to "move house" to another house where a landline has been recently connected with Telecom. However if your homeline is with a different provider (I think Orcon was the one I was looking at), it costs nothing to shift house and phone.

This is total profiteering on Telecom's part...

richms

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#304644 5-Mar-2010 01:28

No its not, there is a real cost in making the changes.

Other providers are eating that cost, whereas if Telecom were to do that, they would have to then not charge the other providers the cost.

Its a result of the bumbling commerce commission decision ages back when setting prices for other providers that are reselling Telecom's services.

Chances are the providers that are "free" have a term and a termination. Was the case when I looked into getting a homeline off someone else ages back when I needed one for a fax.

Richard rich.ms

pressF1

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#304770 5-Mar-2010 14:13

richms: No its not, there is a real cost in making the changes.

Other providers are eating that cost, whereas if Telecom were to do that, they would have to then not charge the other providers the cost.

Its a result of the bumbling commerce commission decision ages back when setting prices for other providers that are reselling Telecom's services.

Chances are the providers that are "free" have a term and a termination. Was the case when I looked into getting a homeline off someone else ages back when I needed one for a fax.

Hmmm, happy to be corrected here, but the retail division of telecom can choose to pass on that cost or not. It doesn't impact the regulated supply via Chorus. If telecom were to start discounting the rental that would then have an impact as the wholesale price of the POTS services are base don an average price of retail, but the install....don't believe so.

richms

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#304938 5-Mar-2010 22:44

If they have had the shackles of regulation removed as they are now seperated then that is great, but I dont think they have.

Friend was going to go back to telecom to get big time because orcon is too crap for him and is blaming his router rather than get chorus out to fix the line, the charge stopped him so he is moving to slingshot to get the free offpeak. Since he gets the same as me and they are usually fine because they are cached it will all come down offpeak since he gets a 20 meg sync vs my pathetic 3.

Richard rich.ms

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