Hi,

Hoping this is the correct place to post and hoping someone can steer me in the correct direction (short of my just reading the entire Telecommunications act word-for-word).

I have just received a notification from our internet/landline provider (Vodafone) that Chorus is planning to decommission our copper landlines by August 2021 and we should switch to fibre/VDSL/VOIP. 

The problem is we have no fibre, our ADSL runs over the same copper landlines, and we have no cellular coverage at our address.  So while I would be thrilled to switch to fibre or VDSL, no such service exists.

What legal rights do I have? Can Chorus just decide to terminate our copper landlines we have had for over 20 years and take our phone and ADSL service away without offering us an alternate service?

Here's a little background about our situation (in case this thread turns into a  'use RBI' discussion)....

My business is located on Waiheke (as some may know from my prior posts on Geekzone) and we have a long history of issues with getting reliable broadband service at our location.  We have copper landlines and ADSL that runs around 4-5mbps and goes down multiple times a year due to a long and deteriorating copper cable that runs to our properties from Rocky Bay through Whakanewha.  We are also in an area where we do not receive cellular signal either so Vodafone 3G/4G RBI has been explored and is not an option.  Fibre was run (last year) across our property driveway, but we were told that is Chorus's backhaul and only available to customers on request. I made an 'NGA on application' through Vodafone and Chorus came back with $103,000 for us to connect (the fibre and an access port is literally <4m from one of our buildings).  So our options our limited to get any service and now it seems they are saying we are going to lose our analog phone lines and our ADSL service and be cut off from phone and internet access.

We do use a local business to supplement our internet with some WiFi access, but it is subject to all the problems of WiFi internet (rain degradation, latency, interference, packet loss, power outages, etc...).  When compared to fixed line internet it just doesn't meet the same level of reliability and this is why our phone line, voip, and suresignal repeater all run over this copper ADSL line so that we can operate our business.  Furthermore, this WiFi internet service is a small Waiheke based business so there is always the risk that this small business could fold-up shop and with Chorus saying we are going to be disconnected from all service, we could find ourselves cut-off from the basic services we have had the last 20 years.

So I'm wondering if we have any legal rights here or if we can just be 'decommissioned' from phone and internet service.