Telecom NZ’s revised separation plan has finally be accepted by Telecommunications and ICT minister David Cunliffe, clearing the way for full implementation of operational separation. In spite of some outstanding issues, including reporting lines for Telecom’s retail unit head, the last version by Telecom met with approval. Performance indicators and milestones included:
- Group-based incentives for wholesale division managers must not exceed 30% of total income
- Milestones for next generation network (NGN) rollout
- Telecommunications Service Obligations
- Broadband pathway
- Digital Strategy
Most notable are:
30 June 2010 – more than 1,500 distribution cabinets will be installed or equipped with ADSL2+ or equivalent DSL capability (for example, VDSL capability) in Telecom’s Zones 1,2 and 3 with DSLAMs installed and operational
31 December 2010 – more than 2,200 distribution cabinets will be installed or equipped with ADSL2+ or equivalent in Telecom’s Zones 1,2, and 3 with DSLAMs installed and operational
31 December 2011 – 99% of lines in Telecom’s Zones 1, 2 & 3 (which equates to 80% of existing PSTN lines) will be engineered to have a maximum line loss of 60db measured at 1024kbit/s at the external termination point
2012 - No less than 84% of lines will receive at least 10Mbit/s broadband
The implementation will be monitored under the watchful eye of the Commerce Commission.