The Telecommunications Commissioner is about to get his hands dirty after TelstraClear applied to have a determination made over its interconnection agreement with Telecom.
In a press statement, a spokeswoman for the commissioner says the office has received an application from TelstraClear to issue a determination over both interconnection and TelstraClear's wholesale agreement with Telecom.
Telecom however, has also issued a press release claiming that it has asked the commissioner to make a determination on interconnection.
Telecom's chief operating officer Simon Moutter says TelstraClear is just "mucking around".
"We’ve shown plenty of negotiating flexibility and tabled various proposals. In response, TelstraClear keeps changing its stance on the whole process of negotiation.”
When Clear first launched into New Zealand in 1991 it signed an agreement with Telecom to allow callers from each network to make contact with users on the other network. Telecom and Clear have fallen out over the agreement on more than one occasion since then. In October last year Clear accused Telecom of trying to force it into unacceptable terms and conditions that include giving Telecom the right to veto any press statement made by Clear among other things.
Earlier this year TelstraClear accused Telecom of not provisioning lines quickly enough, leading to a 111 outage while Telecom retaliated by saying TelstraClear owed it nearly $20 million in unpaid bills.
Telecom now says that figure is closer to $40 million.
Telecom has previously stated (see Telecom Parkes itself in the Webb of access pricing ) that it wanted to set the interconnection charges at a relatively high level so as to encourage other telcos to build their own infrastructure and so encourage alternative technologies.
The commissioner now has 10 working days in which to decide whether or not to take up the challenge and must seek comment from all parties within that time-frame.
Telecom also has yet to reach agreement with many of the smaller telcos and ISPs over interconnection agreements.
TelstraClear did not immediately return IDGNet's calls.