Telecom is asking Communications Minister Stephen Joyce to
allow it to make a "small number" of changes to its
undertakings on operational separation to allow it
flexibility on ultra fast broadband (UFB).
The variation proposal aimed to ensure Telecom's operational
separation investment programme could incorporate UFB-related
services, processes and capabilities, once those were known,
the company said today.
Telecom Wholesale chief executive Matt Crockett said the
proposed changes provided the company with the flexibility to
determine systems in the short term while it designed new
systems and interfaces to be as future-proof as possible
given UFB developments.
"Nothing in our request for a variation changes Telecom's
bedrock commitment to delivering our equivalence milestones,
at the heart of the undertakings, on time and in full. There
will be no backsliding," Mr Crockett said.
Telecom wants to re-focus June 2010 and December 2010
Wholesale milestones so that equivalence can be delivered on
either new or existing systems.
It also wants to defer the existing June 2010 and December
2010 milestones that require Telecom to deliver that
equivalence on predominantly new systems by 12 months.
"Our 2010 undertakings delivery programme is already
extremely challenging and we are under enormous pressure to
meet the current dates.
"The result is there is no room for Telecom, or its
customers, to pause and understand UFB in order to build the
necessary flexibility into our system designs," Mr Crockett
said.
