The telecommunications industry across New Zealand has endured a “particularly eventful” past 17 months, with mergers, acquisitions, spectrum sales and the arrival of a slew of content streaming services.
That’s according to the Commerce Commission’s latest annual telecommunications monitoring report analysing the state of New Zealand’s telecommunications markets.
“Competition among fixed-line retailers remains strong and the sector is responding positively to consumer demand for better broadband quality and value,” says Dr Stephen Gale, Telecommunications Commissioner.
“Average broadband speeds are increasing and the average data consumed per connection per month has grown strongly from 26GB in the previous year to 32GB.”
On the mobile side, the report claims growth in data consumption has been even greater rising from around 130MB per mobile connection per month to 229MB.
“As noted in last year’s report, data revenues continue to rise while voice-related revenues are in decline, reflecting the importance of fixed and mobile internet access for New Zealand households,” Dr Gale adds.
When comparing New Zealand’s retail prices to those in other OECD and similar countries for various levels of monthly consumption, Dr Gale claims New Zealand’s price of $69 for a 30Mbps 30GB fibre broadband plan with voice was 22 percent below the average of 28 countries with comparable plans.
Furthermore, New Zealand’s price of $69 for a 30GB entry level copper broadband and phone bundle was right on the average of 32 countries with comparable plans, the price of $29 for a mobile plan providing at least 100 calls (188 minutes), 140 texts and 500MB of data was 35 percent below the average for the 34 OECD countries and the price for 6GB of stand-alone mobile data at $90 (typically for use with a data-stick) was amongst the most expensive in the OECD.
Today's report is the eighth annual telecommunications market monitoring report produced by the Commission, released as part of the on-going monitoring of the evolution of competition in the telecommunications sector in New Zealand.
The full report can be found by [[xref:http://www.comcom.govt.nz/regulated-industries/telecommunications/monitoring-reports-and-studies/monitoring-reports/ |clicking here]]