About Information Reporting
Various national and international organisations (such as OECD and Statistics NZ) routinely prepare telecommunications market or economy summaries and benchmarking reports which require detailed information from carriers and service providers within New Zealand. There is however no mechanism in place for managing or co-ordinating this provision of information across the industry – ensuring firstly that these information requests get answered by all relevant parties, and secondly that they are answered in a consistent manner across all carriers.
The Information Reporting working party was established in July 2006 to investigate coordinating responses to multi-carrier information requests from organisations such as OECD and Statistics New Zealand.
A set of industry statistics in a consolidated questionnaire was developed and has been published, without compromising the commercial confidentiality of carriers, for organisations like the ITU and the OECD so they may access these statistics for their own international comparisons. Establishing processes for collating such information will also improve consistency of information and lower compliance costs across the industry.
The data from the consolidated questionnaire is now available in an aggregated form on the Commerce Commissions website and can be accessed through the following link:
http://www.comcom.govt.nz/IndustryRegulation/Telecommunications/MonitoringandReporting/DecisionsList.aspx.
Extension to Project Scope
Broadband Performance Monitoring
In November 2008 the TCF Board approved an extension to the scope of the Information Reporting working party. This extension was granted to cover the concerns TCF members had raised regarding the methodology being used for Broadband Performance Monitoring and the resulting robustness of the data being collected and reported. This extension to scope was seen as an avenue to enable the working group to engage with the Commerce Commission on how the Broadband Performance Monitoring could be improved and to enable further opportunities for Broadband Performance Monitoring to be identified.
It was agreed that the following activity be added to the scope of the working party:
- Identification of issues with the current Broadband Performance Monitoring.
- Development of a TCF report on Broadband Performance Monitoring which outlines:
- objectives the TCF would like to achieve.
- suggested options to resolve the issues identified.
- suggestions in regards to data collection, aggregation, presentation and evaluation.
Presentation of the report to the Commerce Commission as a basis for providing assistance with the improvement of Broadband Performance Monitoring in New Zealand.
In late 2010 the Commisison announced they were started a Demand Side Survey and would undertake a general refresh to the way they collect, and publish data on broadband performance in New Zealand. The TCF Working Party will assist in any aspect they can to ensure that the Commission receives and publishes the best data on this key aspect of modern telecommunications.
Benchmarking
In March 2010 the TCF Board approved a further extension to the scope of the Information Reporting working party. This extension was granted to incorporate the development of alternative benchmarking proposals that could be put to the Commission as suggested improvements.
One of the standing features of the Commission’s reports on the New Zealand Telecommunications market is the use of international pricing comparisons. These allow the Commission to benchmark the cost of New Zealand telecommunications services and comment upon the value for money that New Zealand users receive relative to the rest of the developed world. The Commerce Commission utilises the comparison tools produced by Teligen for these purposes, which are methods developed specifically for the purposes of pricing comparisons between OECD countries.
While TCF members recognise the requirement that the Commission has to monitor the market in this regard, and the validity of such comparisons, the TCF considers there are improvements which can be made to the basis upon which the benchmarking is conducted.
The working party has, since late 2010, been collecting data on traffic volumes and providing those to Statistics New Zealand for Statistics to anonymise and reconcile. Ultimately, the working party hopes that this provision of information will allow it, the Commerce Commission and Statistics, to determine what makes up a New Zealand low, medium and heavy user so that in the future any data that is published can be put into a New Zealand context.