Commission releases final decision on wholesale broadband prices 2015

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#1453043 18-Dec-2015 14:22

The issue is that this part of it that is going up is going straight to chorus who are now doing absolutely nothing to fix or maintain their copper network other than sending techs out to say that its working fine.

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#1453082 18-Dec-2015 15:22

I don't really think that's a fair characterisation. Are you honestly trying to say that nothing is being spent on the maintenance of the copper network? The court, presented with evidence that took months to examine and understand, evidently disagrees with you.

richms

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#1453086 18-Dec-2015 15:26

Where is there new copper going into the ground? Why are people on crappy pairs delivering a substandard service just being told "oh its multiples" and nothing being done to sort it out.

Sure, they will come out and bodge reconnect things that are damaged to get people back online, but investing in making it performing the best that it can? No, that stopped when the last cabnet went in.

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#1453088 18-Dec-2015 15:29

richms: Where is there new copper going into the ground? Why are people on crappy pairs delivering a substandard service just being told "oh its multiples" and nothing being done to sort it out.

Sure, they will come out and bodge reconnect things that are damaged to get people back online, but investing in making it performing the best that it can? No, that stopped when the last cabnet went in.

Why would would they spend money on copper when they could spend money on Fibre.

They could spend money on copper on areas that have no fibre planned, but Fibre is the future. Copper has a very limited lifespan relative to that.

Cabinets ARE the last thing they want to do on copper. They have done stuff like Band 988.

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#1453089 18-Dec-2015 15:32

Exactly. Its a dead product in the ground. Their costs are nothing but fixing up damage which should be something that they have insurance or self-insure for making it an operating expense. They are pricing it out to ISPs as something with a future, a good product etc. Its just a piece of crap that will hang in there till fiber is established. On life support etc. Bet they cant wait till they can get the old neax's out of their buildings and down to the scrap metal dealers.

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#1453090 18-Dec-2015 15:35

richms: Exactly. Its a dead product in the ground. Their costs are nothing but fixing up damage which should be something that they have insurance or self-insure for making it an operating expense. They are pricing it out to ISPs as something with a future, a good product etc. Its just a piece of crap that will hang in there till fiber is established. On live support etc. Bet they cant wait till they can get the old neax's down to the scrap metal dealers.

Disagree. I rely heavily on my copper until then, and for ME it has fantastic value (70/30Mbps unlimited for $69), an increase of $3 a month isn't something worth taking the time to send this reply, to me.

richms

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#1453094 18-Dec-2015 15:41

networkn:
Disagree. I rely heavily on my copper until then, and for ME it has fantastic value (70/30Mbps unlimited for $69), an increase of $3 a month isn't something worth taking the time to send this reply, to me.

Thats great for you, but it doesn't deliver that to most people. People I know have had ongoing battles with ISP and chorus over issues whenever it rains, sync drops or goes really slowly. Eventually tech comes out when its all dried out (seems to be their stratigy) who will mess around in the grey helmet for a bit, declare it fixed because they are getting 12/2 or something absurd and leave. Over the next while it dries out etc. Much time wasted by all because there is clearly a fault with the cable somewhere. Noone interested in fixing it, just send a tech, fiddle with wires that are not the problem, and the disconnecting it and reconnecting it seems to kick the sync up a little.

If it was a supported product then they would have been digging, fault finding, replacing damaged cables, repairing etc.

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#1453098 18-Dec-2015 15:46

Well my copper went from 2 meg to 16 meg to 30 meg to 50 meg now, they certainly did improved it for me.

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#1453297 19-Dec-2015 01:03

networkn: They have done stuff like Band 988.

998 made my upload speed drop. It was not a silver bullet. It was a config change. It doesn't do much for cases where the line is poor to begin with.

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#1453433 19-Dec-2015 11:38

And Vodafone up its prices too:

The Commerce Commission’s decision to increase pricing for copper access is not in the best interests of New Zealand consumers, according to Vodafone’s Consumer Director Matt Williams.

Copper pricing in New Zealand is already high by international standards, and Williams says the new prices are even higher than what the Commission signalled earlier this year in its draft pricing proposal.

“It is very unfortunate that New Zealanders will continue to be charged much more for copper access than friends and family around the world,” Matt Williams said.

One positive to come out of the announcement is the Commission’s decision not to backdate its pricing decision. We welcome this as it was clear that backdating would have harmed competition and ultimately kiwi consumers.

The decision by the Commerce Commission to increase prices means that we have had to thoroughly review our pricing for residential fixed line services and introduce the following price rise:

$5 per month increase for ADSL / VDSL customers with broadband, or home landline and broadband connections.

The price rise will apply from 1 March 2016.

Prices are unchanged for customers with a landline only connections, and also for fibre customers (including UFB and Vodafone’s cable fibre network).

“It is particularly disappointing as New Zealand fixed line and broadband users already pay a higher price for legacy copper lines than they do for new fibre technology. Whilst copper services will remain an important part of ensuring connectivity for kiwi families and businesses, the future for New Zealand is fibre,” said Matt Williams.

New Zealanders are embracing communication services like never before and we are investing heavily in our network and in international connectivity to realise that potential.

We remain firmly committed to continued investment and industry leadership to ensure the communication needs of New Zealanders is supported through a reliable UFB network and innovative products and services.

We recently announced a $22million investment in the fibre cable serving Wellington, Christchurch and Kapiti. This investment, along with our continued partnership with Government to deliver wireless broadband and mobile coverage to rural New Zealanders as part of the Rural Broadband Initiative, and the continued expansion of our mobile network ensures we meet the future needs of New Zealanders in a rapidly changing domestic and global environment.

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#1453721 20-Dec-2015 00:38

coffeebaron:
Beccara: To be atleast a little bit fair the wholesale price has been dropped for a little while and you'd all be screaming murder if they didn't drop the price when their price was dropped. It just means if wholesale prices go up so do consumer prices

Actually several ISP's put their price up when the price dropped last year. Now they're doing another round of putting prices up.

Which to me seems like a good thing. Internet is too cheap in New Zealand compared to the normal high cost of living here.

The less margin providers have the poorer quality experience we're likely to get.

For some reason a lot of people seem to care about "cheap internet" but not "cheap power", even though power costs way more than internet, and you get the same power whatever provider you use. (unlike internet, which does tend to vary by provider)

That said I'm not sure what a reasonable cost is - and if it really is expensive to provide lines in New Zealand then maybe there should be government subsidies in copper as well as fibre, as phone and internet is kind of a requirement these days!

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#1453757 20-Dec-2015 08:35

One thing many people seem to be forgetting is that wholesale prices for a bundle are still cheaper than the price prior to Dec 1st 2014.

It'd be interesting to look at the price of entry level bundles from the big ISPs both prior to this date and after they all add their $5 increase and see how they compare.

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#1453831 20-Dec-2015 11:27

sbiddle: One thing many people seem to be forgetting is that wholesale prices for a bundle are still cheaper than the price prior to Dec 1st 2014.

It'd be interesting to look at the price of entry level bundles from the big ISPs both prior to this date and after they all add their $5 increase and see how they compare.

It has most certainly gone up for unbundled though which makes up a decent portion of the market.
Flip was originally priced at $49.95 thanks to unbundling now it's up to around $65?

Plus many expected the wholesale price to go down from retail-minus to cost-based benchmarking.

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#1453896 20-Dec-2015 13:41

yitz:
sbiddle: One thing many people seem to be forgetting is that wholesale prices for a bundle are still cheaper than the price prior to Dec 1st 2014.

It'd be interesting to look at the price of entry level bundles from the big ISPs both prior to this date and after they all add their $5 increase and see how they compare.

It has most certainly gone up for unbundled though which makes up a decent portion of the market.
Flip was originally priced at $49.95 thanks to unbundling now it's up to around $65?

Plus many expected the wholesale price to go down from retail-minus to cost-based benchmarking.

UCLL costs went up primarily because the split between urban and rural copper was removed and averaged out. This merging (and the timeframe for it) was announced in 2011 as part of the Telecom/Chorus split and is one of the reasons investment in UCLL equipment literally stopped 4 years ago - because the economics of it was killed overnight.

Many assumed the cost would drop when it moved to cost based, and it did. The problem was the Commerce Commission originally looked at 2 countries for pricing and didn't take any inputs into account when they set this pricing. Their review then moved to a forward looking cost model (which many in the industry pushed for) but it seems many who asked for this didn't really understand what they were in fact asking for. A forward looking model in a fiber & copper world will see copper costs rising as people move away from the network, and this is now exactly what we're got.

Anybody surprised that the forward looking model delivered a higher price should probably learn about economics 101!

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#1454093 20-Dec-2015 23:02

richms:
networkn:
Disagree. I rely heavily on my copper until then, and for ME it has fantastic value (70/30Mbps unlimited for $69), an increase of $3 a month isn't something worth taking the time to send this reply, to me.

Thats great for you, but it doesn't deliver that to most people. People I know have had ongoing battles with ISP and chorus over issues whenever it rains, sync drops or goes really slowly. Eventually tech comes out when its all dried out (seems to be their stratigy) who will mess around in the grey helmet for a bit, declare it fixed because they are getting 12/2 or something absurd and leave. Over the next while it dries out etc. Much time wasted by all because there is clearly a fault with the cable somewhere. Noone interested in fixing it, just send a tech, fiddle with wires that are not the problem, and the disconnecting it and reconnecting it seems to kick the sync up a little.

If it was a supported product then they would have been digging, fault finding, replacing damaged cables, repairing etc.

Yes we have had the rain issue and where we live is "outside the area of planned coverage" for UFB.

I'd be VERY happy with 70/30 whatever the cable type used.

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