The Telecommunications (Regulated Fibre Services) Regulations 2021 were made on 13 September 2021. The regulations specify anchor broadband and voice services and one direct fibre access service (DFAS) that Chorus must provide to retail service providers (RSPs).
The regulations are designed to act as an ‘anchor’ on the price and quality of other fibre services offerings that Chorus offers to RSPs. The regulations will take effect from 1 January 2022 and may be reviewed in the future by the Commerce Commission.
Telecommunications (Regulated Fibre Services) Regulations 2021(external link) — New Zealand Legislation
These regulations are relevant to the fibre fixed line access services Price Quality (PQ) and Information Disclosure (ID) decisions that the Commerce Commission needs to make by 31 December 2021. The Commission published draft fibre fixed line access services PQ and ID decisions for consultation on 27 May 2021 and it intends to publish final decisions in November-December 2021.
Fibre price-quality path and information disclosure(external link) — Commerce Commission
The regulations incorporate by reference relevant content from existing wholesale service agreements (WSAs) or reference offers. The WSAs set out detailed terms and conditions related to the provision of services declared to be anchor services and DFAS under the new regulations.
The WSAs can be found at the below links, alongside the technical standards also incorporated by reference.
Chorus UFB Services Agreement (Service Level Terms for Bitstream Services) Reference Offer dated October 2020
Available here:
Chorus UFB Services Agreement (Reference Offer) documents(external link) — Chorus NZ
Chorus UFB Services Agreement Fibre Access Services (layer 1) (Service Level Terms for Fibre Access Services (layer 1)) Reference Offer dated October 2020
Available here:
Chorus UFB Services Agreement (Reference Offer) documents(external link) — Chorus NZ
Chorus UFB Services Agreement (General Terms) dated December 2012 [PDF, 434 KB](external link) — Chorus NZ
Chorus UFB Services Agreement Direct Fibre Access Services (layer 1) (Operations Manual for Direct Fibre Access Services (layer 1)) Reference Offer dated October 2020
Available here:
Chorus UFB Services Agreement (Reference Offer) documents(external link) — Chorus NZ
Notice of specified points of interconnection under section 231 of the Act dated 19 December 2019 (Commerce Commission) [PDF, 196 KB](external link) — Commerce Commission
TCF UFB Ethernet Access Service Description (v 33) [PDF, 1.3 MB](external link) — New Zealand Telecommunications Forum
IEC 61754-4: Fibre optic interconnecting devices and passive components – Fibre optic connector interfaces – Part 4: Type SC connector family (2013)(external link) — International Electrotechnical Commission Webstore
IEC 61754-20: Fibre optic interconnecting devices and passive components – Fibre optic connector interfaces – Part 20: Type LC connector family (2012)(external link) — International Electrotechnical Commission Webstore
IEEE3: IEEE Standard for Ethernet (2018)(external link) — IEEE Standards Association
ITU-T G.652: Characteristics of a single-mode optical fibre and cable (November 2016)(external link) — International Telecommunication Union
ITU-T G.657: Characteristics of a bending-loss insensitive single-mode optical fibre and cable (November 2016)(external link) — International Telecommunication Union
ITU-T G.984: ITU-T G.984 Umbrella Standard (2010)(external link) — International Telecommunication Union
ITU-T L.41: Maintenance wavelength on fibres carrying signals (May 2000)(external link) — International Telecommunication Union
ND0556: Optical Fibre – Layer 1 Network Test Plan – Volumes 1-3 (December 2016)
ITU-T G.711a: ITU-T G.711 Pulse code modulation (PCM) of voice frequencies (2000)(external link) — International Telecommunication Union
PTC 220: Requirements for Private Voice Networks connected to the PSTN/ISDN/ VoIP public networks (July 2019) [PDF, 944 KB](external link) — Telepermit New Zealand
RFC 4733: RTP Payload for DTMF Digits, Telephony Tones and Telephony Signals (December 2006)(external link) — Internet Engineering Task Force
RFC 3261: SIP: Session Initiation Protocol (June 2002)(external link) — Internet Engineering Task Force
TNA 102: Characteristics of the Spark Analogue Telephone Network Customer Interface (August 2019) [PDF, 458 KB](external link) — Telepermit New Zealand
The Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE) released a discussion document and consulted on an exposure draft of the regulations in May 2021.
MBIE received 7 submissions in total. This included: 4 from retail service providers (Spark, Vodafone, 2degrees and Vector); 2 from local fibre companies (Chorus and Enable/UltraFast Fibre); and 1 from the Interim Māori Spectrum Commission. These are available at the links provided below.
Annex A – Chorus UFB Services Agreement General Terms [PDF, 581 KB]
Annex B – Chorus Alternative Draft Regulations [PDF, 143 KB]
Draft regulations for the declaration of anchor services and DFAS – Vector [PDF, 102 KB]
Cabinet paper seeks to submit the Telecommunications (Regulated Fibre Services) Regulations 2021 made under sections 227 and 228 of the Telecommunications Act 2001.
PDF, 303KB, 30 pages
Cabinet agreed to the submission of the Telecommunications (Regulated Fibre Services) Regulations 2021 made under sections 227 and 228 of the Telecommunications Act 2001.
PDF, 145KB, 3 pages
© Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/science-and-technology/it-communications-and-broadband/our-role-in-the-ict-sector/fibre-regulations/
Please note: This content will change over time and can go out of date.
Draft for Consultation: Telecommunications (Regulated Fibre Services) Regulations 2021 [PDF 452KB]