Under Part 3 of the Telecommunications Act 2001, there is provision for Ministerial declarations of Telecommunications Service Obligations (TSOs).
The purpose of this Part is to facilitate the supply of certain telecommunications services to groups of end-users within New Zealand to whom those services may not otherwise be supplied on a commercial basis or at a price that is considered by the Minister of Communications to be affordable to those groups of end-users. There are currently two TSO obligations. They are:
- Telecommunications Service Obligations (TSO) Deed for Local Residential Telephone Service between the Crown and Telecom. Click here to view details. The exchange of letters between the Crown and Telecom relating to directory assistance (referred to in paragraph 7.4 of the Deed) can be found on the Ministry of Economic Development's website at http://www.med.govt.nz/pbt/telecom/deed/index.html; and
- TSO Deed for Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS) for the hearing impaired between the Crown and Sprint. Click here to view details.
The Commission administers the above deeds by annually: - monitoring compliance of the service providers with their deed;
- determining the net cost faced by the service providers, or the agreed cost in the case of a specified amount TSO;
- determining the liable persons; and
- the apportionment of this cost amongst the liable persons.
From 2006-07 the latter two functions will be included in a separate TSO cost allocation determination TSO Local Calling
Click on the following links to acess the Local Residential Telephone Service TSO Determinations and related documents for 2005-06, 2004-05, 2003-04, 2002-03 and 2001-02.
TSO Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS)
Click on the following links to acess the Telecommunications Relay Service TSO Determinations and related documents for 2005-06, 2004-05.