Explanatory note

This note is not part of the order, but is intended to indicate its general effect.

This order, which comes into force on the 28th day after its notification in the Gazette, gives effect to recommendations made by the Commerce Commission to amend the terms of the national roaming service as set out in Part 3 of Schedule 1 of the Telecommunications Act 2001.

This amendment is made following the acceptance by the Minister for Communications and Information Technology of the Commerce Commission's recommendations set out in Telecommunications Act 2001: Schedule 3 Investigation into Amending the Roaming Service (final report, 10 March 2008).

The amendments will do the following:

• remove the restriction to “second generation cellular mobile services” and the exclusion “(which must not be a third generation cellular mobile telephone network)”, with the effect of making the service technology neutral provided that both the access seeker and the access provider have deployed networks that are technically compatible and are able to interconnect with each other:

• clarify that the roaming service enables transmission of cellular mobile traffic by means of the access provider's cellular mobile telephone network between (but not including) the cellular mobile device of the access seeker's end-user and the access seeker's handover point (or equivalent facility):

• remove conditions (a) and (b), which prevent an access seeker from applying for a determination if there is an agreement in place or there is a pending or existing determination on another service provider's network, to ensure consistency with the changes made by the Telecommunications Amendment Act (No 2) 2006:

• change the initial coverage area requirement to comprise either at least 100 cellsites or coverage of at least 10% of the population:

• remove the ability of an access seeker to apply for a determination before achieving the roll-out threshold:

• reduce the roll-out requirement from national coverage to 65% of the New Zealand population:

• introduce a new condition requiring that the services (other than value-added services) for which transmission is sought are available to the end-users of both the access provider and the access seeker, to ensure that the access seeker will face appropriate incentives to build out its own network:

• introduce a new condition requiring that the cellular mobile telephone networks of the access seeker and the access provider are technically compatible and able to interconnect with each other, to give certainty about network compatibility:

• reduce the spectrum requirement from national coverage to a network that covers 65% of the population.