Commission finds NZ mobile sector adequate

WELLINGTON: The mobile sector has been found to be serving New Zealanders reasonably well and not in need of any further regulation at this stage.

The Commerce Commission released the early findings of its market study into mobile services yesterday.

It found they rank high globally for speeds, are priced lower than the average of developed countries and garner generally positive feedback from consumers.

However, telecommunications commissioner Dr Stephen Gale said there was room for improvement, with prices for large data plans noticeably higher than in Australia.

Dr Gale noted those sorts of contracts for data were uncommon here.

The commission also examined what was happening with wholesale services, and found that increasingly, there is competition in the space, with virtual operators like Vocus, the Warehouse and other new players wanting services to onsell to their customers without having to invest in a network.

But it found only 1% of customers here were served by virtual operators, compared with 10% in Australia.

Dr Gale was satisfied competition was adequate.

‘‘We see no need to regulate at this stage but will keep an eye on the ability of new virtual operators to access wholesale services. We expect more spectrum and consumer engagement will help this market to develop where it is commercially viable.’’

The commission said the three networks — Vodafone, Spark and 2degrees — provided healthy competition, and let virtual operators latch on to their networks for added competition.

However, the largest virtual operator, Vocus, disagreed with the commission’s findings.

‘‘Quite frankly they [the commission] have missed the mark by a long, long way here.’’ — RNZ