Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 1: daily podcast presented by.
Speaker 2: The New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 1: For the past month, kiwis have been able to have
Speaker 1: their say on proposals to change our telecommunications sector.
Speaker 2: Minister for Regulation David Seymour.
Speaker 1: Has said these services are as essential as power and water,
Speaker 1: and that changing the way the sector is regulated will.
Speaker 2: Affect almost every kiwi.
Speaker 1: Changes could include introducing a consumer code, replacing or phasing
Speaker 1: out current obligation frameworks, and getting rid of obsolete rules.
Speaker 2: But what does all of that actually mean?
Speaker 1: And do enough New Zealanders know how these changes could
Speaker 1: affect our everyday lives. Today on the front Page, Tech
Speaker 1: common Bill Bennett is with us to dive into the
Speaker 1: recommendations and why consumers should care about how their connectivity
Speaker 1: is regulated. First off, Bill, do you think the telecommunications
Speaker 1: sector's regulatory framework is fit for purpose at the moment?
Speaker 3: It's pretty good. I mean it's working. In terms of competition.
Speaker 3: Our market is as competitive as any market could be.
Speaker 3: Compare our telecommunications market. We save a supermarket sector and
Speaker 3: it's intensely competitive. It's so competitive that the companies sometimes
Speaker 3: winge that. You know, it's so competitive they can't make
Speaker 3: as much profit as they might make, So from that
Speaker 3: point of view, it's working. From the consumer point of view,
Speaker 3: it's working too, because there's a lot of things in
Speaker 3: place to protect consumers and keep consumers from being exploited.
Speaker 3: So from all but from those points of view, it's
Speaker 3: working quite well. There are some issues that probably need
Speaker 3: to be addressed, and there's a regulatory review going on
Speaker 3: right now which is going.
Speaker 4: Over those issues.
Speaker 3: One of the problems historically is that telecommunications, like anything
Speaker 3: in technology, moves quite fast, and legislation doesn't tend to
Speaker 3: move very fast. But u Zeeland we have something called
Speaker 3: the Telecommunications Act, and I think the Telecommunications Act goes
Speaker 3: back to two thousand and one. Since two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: there's been thirteen amendments, so it's amended every couple of years,
Speaker 3: and a lot of those amendments along the way have
Speaker 3: been to update it. So it had a really big
Speaker 3: amendment about five or six years ago to get ready
Speaker 3: for the fiber regime. So there's a huge set of
Speaker 3: new rules coming in for fiber. Fact, the last amendment
Speaker 3: I think was in March this year, so it's not
Speaker 3: like it's left to just you and get out of date.
Speaker 2: Why are they fiddling with it then? If it's doing
Speaker 2: all right well, I.
Speaker 4: Think two things.
Speaker 3: One is there's a bit of ideology in that the
Speaker 3: government wants to cut down on the amount of regulations
Speaker 3: there are, full stop. And it's a good place to
Speaker 3: start because it's although it's a very complicated set of regulations,
Speaker 3: as on, the industry is relatively simple.
Speaker 4: It's only a.
Speaker 3: Handful of big players, so it's relatively easy to deal with.
Speaker 3: It's much easier to deal with that than some of
Speaker 3: the tackling some of the harder things, like say supermarkets.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is is there's some pressure from
Speaker 3: inside the industry to reform some of the regulation, but
Speaker 3: in general there's not a lot of push from inside
Speaker 3: the sector to reform things.
Speaker 2: What are the most significant recommendations do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, at the review that's coming along at the moment,
Speaker 3: they haven't got recommendations yet. They've just asked for input
Speaker 3: from the industry and from various for the groups. I
Speaker 3: think they're due to report this Thursday on that input
Speaker 3: from the industry and from stakeholders. There's I don't think
Speaker 3: there are actual recommendations at mom where there are topics
Speaker 3: that they're looking at, and one of the things they're
Speaker 3: looking at, for example, is whether the rules around fiber,
Speaker 3: for example, are up to date. What they are, you know,
Speaker 3: it pretty much is, but there are some there are
Speaker 3: some kind of historic things in there that maybe we
Speaker 3: don't need anymore, Like a lot of the rules that
Speaker 3: are around to do with copper networks or the copper
Speaker 3: networks are going out there. But by twenty thirty the
Speaker 3: copper networks will be completely closed and we're down to
Speaker 3: perhaps one hundred and twenty thousand people that are relying
Speaker 3: on copy to day, which isn't very much in the
Speaker 3: bigger scheme of things. So there's a lot of fussing
Speaker 3: over things that no longer really apply. It's a bit
Speaker 3: like the old thing with the London taxes having to
Speaker 3: carry a bale of hay on the top of the
Speaker 3: horses long after the horses are gone and the taxes
Speaker 3: rulled cars.
Speaker 1: Tell me what is the telecommunications service obligations and why
Speaker 1: should it be phased out or replaced?
Speaker 2: I know that that's something that they're looking at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look when when it's a historic thing. Telecom originally
Speaker 3: was the post office, and it was government owned. It
Speaker 3: was state controlled, and it was run as a public service,
Speaker 3: and it had public service obligations. And some of the
Speaker 3: things were like remote places would get a telephone box
Speaker 3: and a telephone line and they didn't have to pay
Speaker 3: more for it. So even if you were in the
Speaker 3: middle of nowhere, you had some kind of telecommunications. The
Speaker 3: industry was seen as it was you know, i'd go
Speaker 3: back one hundred years. It was seen as a nation
Speaker 3: building exercise to have all that in place, so that
Speaker 3: you know, a cowcocky on a farm in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere could ring home for the weekend or whatever
Speaker 3: from a coin box. Then around about the late eighties
Speaker 3: it got privatized. Telecom got privatized and it got bought
Speaker 3: out by at the time some overseas interests, and the
Speaker 3: obligations were put in place so that the things that
Speaker 3: had been social goods that were around forever until then
Speaker 3: continued after privatization and then when competitors came in that
Speaker 3: the idea was the things that keep happening, and some
Speaker 3: of those things are still important today, like one one
Speaker 3: one calling, for example, is part of that, and there's
Speaker 3: a service for it's a relay service for people that
Speaker 3: are hard of hearing, so that you don't need to
Speaker 3: listen to.
Speaker 4: A voice call.
Speaker 3: There are other ways of getting the information for those people,
Speaker 3: and that's all paid for by the government, but it
Speaker 3: has to be provided by the industry. So what we're
Speaker 3: what the TSO is really all about. It's about getting
Speaker 3: private companies to continue those services, and there's money for that,
Speaker 3: some government money, and some of it comes from a
Speaker 3: levee which is charged on the industry, and the industry
Speaker 3: currently pays ten million dollars a year. The amount of
Speaker 3: the company pays is based on how much money they make,
Speaker 3: so Spark would pay the most, and I think Corus
Speaker 3: pays the second most. Then it's one and two degrees
Speaker 3: and so on, and those four companies probably pay about
Speaker 3: ninety eighty five ninety percent of the levy, and all
Speaker 3: the smaller ones to pay a small amount. But the
Speaker 3: money that comes in from that is used to do
Speaker 3: things like subsidized rural calling, subsidized services that are necessary, and.
Speaker 4: That's really what it's about.
Speaker 3: The thing is is that it was essential when telecom
Speaker 3: was privatized for those things to carry on. It's not
Speaker 3: so important today when you've got mobile phones and satellite
Speaker 3: communications in remote places and so on, and alternative options.
Speaker 4: But there's a there's a second area of concern, and.
Speaker 3: It's what's called the digital divide, as a divide between
Speaker 3: rich p and poor people. And poor people have difficulty
Speaker 3: paying for some of these services, and they certainly have
Speaker 3: difficulty paying for things like computers and so on to
Speaker 3: use digital services. But there's also a rural digital divide
Speaker 3: that is that services don't reach everywhere. The fiber network
Speaker 3: goes to eighty seven percent of the country, but that
Speaker 3: leaves thirteen percent which is off the fiber network, and
Speaker 3: some of those people are still dependent on copper lines,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of got to be looked after.
Speaker 4: Buy everyone.
Speaker 3: It's a sort of society problem, not an industry problem, and.
Speaker 4: That's what it's about.
Speaker 3: And it's as you say, it's likely to be phased out,
Speaker 3: given that we're moving to a world where everyone everything's
Speaker 3: on mobile, the copper network's gone, and if you're really
Speaker 3: stuck out in the whats you can use satellite.
Speaker 1: So is there a fear though that if we get
Speaker 1: rid of all of the rules and regulations, that's say,
Speaker 1: a town with a population of ten could be left
Speaker 1: out and left off the map because they're not then
Speaker 1: you know, seen as profitable for those big companies to
Speaker 1: install those networks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 3: And but back in the day of when it was
Speaker 3: a public service, public service. I talked to the people
Speaker 3: who ran Telecom back in the eighties. I've been around
Speaker 3: this business for a long time, and I remember someone
Speaker 3: telling me that there was a phone line to the
Speaker 3: Wronger Wrong a lodge which is right at the bottom
Speaker 3: of the wire rapper on the coast, and it was
Speaker 3: the longest single stretch of copper copper wiring in the
Speaker 3: network at the times. The head of Telecom the time
Speaker 3: told me that it costs literally costs millions every year
Speaker 3: for that line to exist. But that was being subsidized
Speaker 3: by all the people in Karori in places like that
Speaker 3: where you know where they live next to each other
Speaker 3: and right close to an exchange and it costs nothing
Speaker 3: to connect their lines, So that that kind of cross
Speaker 3: substy was there, and it's not there in a commercial era.
Speaker 3: That's that would be true, excepted is there in some
Speaker 3: ways because the fiber network build has been subsidized and
Speaker 3: the fiber network going into rural towns has been paid
Speaker 3: for by various government projects over the years. During the lockdowns,
Speaker 3: there was a big rural development budget was a lot
Speaker 3: of that money was spent on sending viber into those
Speaker 3: regional areas.
Speaker 1: If we don't have those kind of obligations in place, though,
Speaker 1: do we run the risk of, you know, having some
Speaker 1: towns and some people who live rurally just cut off
Speaker 1: the map. I mean, I know that three G is
Speaker 1: being phased out, and I don't know if you've tried
Speaker 1: to drive the length of the country, but there are
Speaker 1: definitely some pretty large dark spots in between there we
Speaker 1: can't get internet absolutely.
Speaker 3: And again some of that TDL money, that levee money
Speaker 3: has been spent on something called the Rural Connectivity Group,
Speaker 3: which is it's basically the three main tailcoats that Spark
Speaker 3: two degrees and one in a joint venture and they
Speaker 3: built town was along remote roads and Chorus puts fiber
Speaker 3: between some of the tech Most of the towers have
Speaker 3: fiber to them and it goes to place. It's like
Speaker 3: Milford Sound. There's there's a fiber now that goes into
Speaker 3: Milford Sound and there's there's phone towls all along that road,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's a pretty remote road. But we're
Speaker 3: not there with one hundred percent coverage for sure, but
Speaker 3: we improved, it's massively improved, and that those builds are
Speaker 3: generally paid for by governments or by the.
Speaker 4: Row from the levee.
Speaker 5: At the end of last year, Octas was here with
Speaker 5: a twelve million dollar fine over people not being able.
Speaker 4: To connect to triple zero.
Speaker 5: Now it has happened again, and only this time at
Speaker 5: least three people have died. What is next, brobdis If
Speaker 5: your network fails on a triple zero call, your phone
Speaker 5: is meant to switch over to a different network to
Speaker 5: get through. This is a mechanism Intelgoes must have in
Speaker 5: place as for this act. And in this instance it's
Speaker 5: clear that even the backup plans failed. Customers warning signs
Speaker 5: were there in twenty twenty three, and now Australia's Communications
Speaker 5: Minister says the telco giant will face significant consequences.
Speaker 1: Now we've seen in Australia recently exactly how reliant we
Speaker 1: are on our telco sectors. Australian officials have promised that
Speaker 1: Optus will face significant consequences over a system's outage and
Speaker 1: it's linked to multiple deaths. The incident left hundreds of
Speaker 1: people across more than half of the country unable to
Speaker 1: call emergency services for thirteen hours.
Speaker 2: At least three people died as a result. Could something
Speaker 2: similar happen here?
Speaker 3: Yes, but no, And by that I mean it's complicated.
Speaker 3: But look, when cyclone Gabrielle came through, people were cut
Speaker 3: off for a long periods of time. The networks are
Speaker 3: quite resilient, but they're not resilient enough, and Gabrielle exposed that.
Speaker 3: Up until Gabrielle, we thought that if you had a
Speaker 3: handful of cables going into an area like I think
Speaker 3: it's Hawk's Bay that was worst affected towns like Wairoa
Speaker 3: in Hawks Bay, they had a handful of lines going
Speaker 3: into those places, but the lines went across bridges and
Speaker 3: the bridges were wiped out and a couple of lines,
Speaker 3: And it turns out that having tours three lines in
Speaker 3: isn't enough.
Speaker 4: You need more.
Speaker 3: So we're building resilience into the network and we've been
Speaker 3: doing a lot of work on that since Gabrielle and
Speaker 3: Gabrielle's it was quite a wake up call for that.
Speaker 3: But the other thing is is that increasingly we can
Speaker 3: use satellites to go around that as well. So if
Speaker 3: an area if part of the country's cut off because
Speaker 3: the main links are down, satellite can fill in the gaps.
Speaker 3: And you probably won't be able to stream Netflix in
Speaker 3: high definition if you're in one of those areas time,
Speaker 3: but you will be able to make voice calls, and
Speaker 3: you will be able to make basic email calls and
Speaker 3: send text messages and on. So it's less likely in
Speaker 3: New Zealand because we do have more resilience. But the
Speaker 3: interesting thing about that Australian episode was that the answer
Speaker 3: to it, the government sees the answer to it, and
Speaker 3: the industry sees the answer to that as fixing the regulations,
Speaker 3: which is back to what we were talking about in
Speaker 3: the first place, about those regular all those regulations that
Speaker 3: they're in place for a purpose. They're not there just
Speaker 3: because you know, pureaucrats enjoy imposing rules on the industry.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So if the Australia is looking at more regulations and
Speaker 1: we're looking at scaling them.
Speaker 3: Back, yes, yes, there's an element of truth in that.
Speaker 3: We've probably my guess is is that the review is
Speaker 3: not going to scale them back that much. There'll be
Speaker 3: some tinkering, There'll be some things that go. There's probably
Speaker 3: a couple of things which are past their cell by date,
Speaker 3: like the rules around copper and so on. But in general,
Speaker 3: I think we have and it's widely understood and even
Speaker 3: within the industry it's widely understood. We have actually very
Speaker 3: good regulations in this area.
Speaker 1: In terms of I mean you see something like the
Speaker 1: you know, have your say for the Telecommunications sector regulate
Speaker 1: regulatory framework and your every day key, we would just
Speaker 1: look at that and turn the page.
Speaker 2: Right, Why should every day key we care about this?
Speaker 4: There are people that are organized to do that. So,
Speaker 4: for example, in rural areas, there are groups that lobby
Speaker 4: for rural telecommunications.
Speaker 3: I was that there's a Connecting a Toroa summit which
Speaker 3: was in Hamilton earlier this year, which was run by
Speaker 3: two ants now two ants is that is used to
Speaker 3: be the Telecommunications Users Group of New Zealander, but it's
Speaker 3: now the Technology Users of New Zealand. They advocate on
Speaker 3: behalf of users and they would and so they were
Speaker 3: put in submissions to things like that, but also things
Speaker 3: like the Young Rural Doctors would put in a submission
Speaker 3: and Federated Farmers would put in, you know, put in submissions,
Speaker 3: and there are rural women's groups and so on which
Speaker 3: submit so you so rather than having to read this
Speaker 3: stuff yourself and get on top of what can be
Speaker 3: quite complicated sets of rules and so on, you know,
Speaker 3: go and talk to your Go and talk to one
Speaker 3: of those organizations that would represent you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Bill, You're welcome.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at NZDHERLD, dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is
Speaker 1: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 1: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your.
Speaker 2: Podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.
Speaker 3: Yeah,