Is there some special international law or rule somewhere that says we have to pay much more than for instance the Australians for our mobile calls?

In April this year, minister Trevor Mallard, seconded to the task by communications minister David Cunliffe who had come under opposition flak for allegedly according favours to Vodafone, decided that Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) should not be regulated.

This despite the Commerce Commission recommending regulation not once, but twice, because NZ MTRs are very high and have a direct influence on retail pricing.

And, Mallard decided against regulation despite Australia and other countries already having gone down that path, for the simple reason that competition in telecommunications tends to be non-existent so that's the only way to push down MTRs. Vodafone and Telecom managed to strike a deal with the government that got both out regulation, see?

This morning, I read in Communications Day that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACC) has decided that MTRs will come down to 9¢ a minute from July 30.

In New Zealand however, Vodafone and Telecom have it very easy. Over the next five years, MTRs will drop very gently to 20¢ this year, then 14/12¢. Yes, that's right: Australian will have substantially lower MTRs this year than what we'll ever see in NZ.

Why?

I completely agree with Ernie Newman of Tuanz, who says:

”In a world where these prices are falling rapidly, the government has condemned New Zealanders to paying more than twice the Australian equivalent. Termination rates are a major component of retail fixed-to-mobile calls and a reason we are paying silly prices such as 71c a minute for a call from home to a cell phone.

”The government should use this new evidence to cancel its deal with Telecom and Vodafone and hand the issue back to the Commission which has the specialist knowledge to deal with such issues.„

Maybe that special regulation for NZers is called "The need to shore up overseas-owned telcos bottom-lines"?