TV One tonight

Despite being in Taupo, I’m on TV One news tonight talking about the recent agreeement between Telecom and Telstra-Clear on (amaongst other things) broadband.

Probably will be on about 6.30 p.m. Was a bit weird as the interviewer was talking to me from Wellington by cellphone into an ear plug, so it was hard to keep looking at the camera. It was filmed in a Taupo Internet Cafe. I was driving up this morning when they phoned, and didn’t arrive until 2 p.m. so had to go straight to meet the camera operator.

The deal was announced at around 5 pm yesterday. NZ Herald story here covers it pretty well.

The bottom line is the deal is an improvement on the status qup in terms of what Telecom has been offering, but is inferior to the Commerce Commission determination a month ago. The unfortunate thing is that now Telstra-Clear has settled privately, it means the medium and small ISPs will not be able to get from Telecom terms as favourable as the Commerce Commission set.

InternetNZ’s press release is after the break for those interested:

Slower service for a higher price: duopoly stitch-up hurts broadband users

Media release – for immediate release
13 January 2006

“Today’s announcement of a deal between Telecom and TelstraClear on a range of wholesale matters is good news for TelstraClear, but potentially bad news for Internet users,” said InternetNZ Executive Director Keith Davidson, commenting on the late-afternoon release of details of a settlement between the two companies.

The deal covers discount for wholesale services including home phone lines, lower interconnection rates and broadband services.

“In particular the two Unbundled Bitstream Service offerings