Just really quickly as I rush out the door to work.

Over the weekend I finally had a chance to read the discussion paper about how the MoED intends to break up Telecom. Unlike some commentators I’ve heard on the radio, I believe this to be a fair and decent split. They’re not taking ownership away from Telecom, but instead making it impossible for Telecom to abuse its position as it has done in the past.

Some commentators are making comparisons to how British Telecom was forced to behave. Simply put, this is not Britain, this is Sparta!^W New Zealand and I don’t care what works in Britain. Something serious needs to be done here in NZ to ensure that Telecom cannot continue to rip New Zealand consumers off any longer.

Do I think the split into 3 separate divisions is too heavy handed? Actually, no. I like the proposed suggestions for why it should happen. However, I think the Government also needs to ensure that if the Access division is later split out and sold as a completely independent company, there needs to be regulation in place to ensure it cannot abuse and take advantage of its monopoly as a company wholely separate from Telecom.

The only thing I do not like about this suggested split is that there is absolutely no incentive for other TelCo’s in New Zealand to now work on and develop their own networks along side this one. If that is truly the case, as it definitely appears to be, then I think it needs a little more fine tuning.

The only thing that really scares me is that there is no apparent forward planning in case the Access company is split away from Telecom entirely. If that ever did happen, I think there is a very serious and real case for the government spending NZ Taxpayer dollars and making it a State Owned Enterprise in much the same way they did with the Power Grid. Serious and major infrastructure upon which we are extremely dependent should be owned by the state/national government. As we have no states, it should become a national property.

But that is only something I want to see happen IF the Access company is split from Telecom and sold as a completely self sufficient and separate entity.

So much to say… Can’t talk now though. Time to work. Yay. The next 7 days of 12 hour shifts. So looking forward to it. :-P

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