The TSO review

Tom Pullar-Strecker at Stuff reports:

Dial-up internet services and many devices that rely on them such as older burglar and medical alarms and fax machines are a step closer to the junk heap after a review of the Telecommunications Service Obligation, which guarantees minimum phone and internet services.

Copies of the White Pages directories will probably no longer be automatically delivered to homes, but phone users should continue to get the option of “free”, unmetered local calls, according to a discussion paper on the future of the Telecommunications Service Obligation, made public yesterday by Communications Minister Amy Adams.

A price cap which limits increases in phone-line rentals to the rate of inflation may be removed in urban areas that are deemed to be subject to sufficient competition, but could remain and might even be tightened to ensure prices fall in real terms elsewhere, the paper said.

The obligation, which is an agreement between Telecom and the Crown, was last updated in 2001.

Changes are needed because the Public Switched Telephone Network and eventually most copper-based communications services are expected to be superseded by internet telephony and the ultrafast broadband network.

The UFB network cannot support low-speed data devices, including dial-up internet modems and other household devices that Telecom and copper network owner Chorus are duty-bound to support at present.

The discussion paper said 114,000 homes were still reliant on dial-up internet for web and email access last year, though that is forecast to drop to 41,000 homes by 2015.

I’m not sure we even need a TSO anymore. It played a useful role when we had a monopoly, but I’d prefer the focus to be on improving competition.