TUANZ's Ernie Newman.
Major players in the telecommunications industry have unanimously rejected the current system for providing phone services to hard-to-reach customers.
The Government is reviewing the telecommunications service obligation (TSO) - an agreement made when Telecom was privatised 17 years ago to guarantee free local calling and affordable phone services
in all regions. It was last updated in 2001.
The Telecommunications Carriers Forum - whose members include the major telcos and network providers - now says it wants to work with the Government to revise the TSO.
The forum has proposed a working group to get consensus on minimum standards for basic phone service and encourage industry competition and investment in rural areas.
TCF independent chair Malcolm Alexander said the industry had raised areas for discussion and said a collaborative approach with the Government would speed up an agreement on the TSO.
The potential scrapping of free local calling - which one industry observer described as "politically sacrosanct" - is not included in the review.
"The concept of working together on meaty issues in the telco space is not novel," said Alexander. "The key is we're trying to be constructive. It isn't from left-field in the sense that the forum has made good progress in a whole lot of other what have at first blush looked big asks."
He points to industry-wide agreements on number portability and local-loop unbundling as examples.
Telecommunications Users Association head Ernie Newman said the forum was the most qualified group of people to be addressing the TSO. "We have a good deal of confidence that people in the industry that know the technology and know the infrastructure inside out with common sense and good will can come up with the best solution," he said.
Telecom spokesman Mark Watts said the increased industry competition and technology change since 2001 had had consequences for the TSO. "We're clearly of the view that we can and will work alongside industry, as we have been doing, to set in place the standards and other arrangements that people will expect," he said.
The Government had also suggested including broadband as part of the TSO, a proposal the industry has come out against saying it is too soon to be included given the significant changes happening at present in the broadband market.
