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Ripped Off

Entry 514, on 2007-04-17 at 20:41:01 (Rating 4, News)

I heard on the radio news this morning that New Zealand's two telecommunication companies are both ripping off their customers because they have set up a lucrative "duopoly" where they both charge excessively for telecom services (especially cell phones). Our rates are amongst the highest in the developed world.

I have often wondered why Vodafone doesn't match Telecom's cheap texting deal, which has clearly gathered many new customers for Telecom. I guess its because the two companies don't want to compete with each other, even if it means they will lose market share. As soon as one makes a genuine effort to compete with the other a price war could start and they might have to offer the consumer fair prices - and they couldn't have that!

So instead of giving people what they want: cheap, reliable phone and Internet services, they create all sorts of complicated pricing schemes which just disguise the fact that they are ripping us off. Its really just one step up from "legal theft".

Telecom are doing everything they can to delay the previous regulation the government has forced on them - unbundling the local copper wire cabling - but now there is a deadline of June 12 for them to have a plan. If phone charges are now also regulated the phone companies will have no one to blame but themselves.

Many people don't accept regulation as a fair tool to control the commercial world - they think the private sector should be left to do as it wants. But that is just an open invitation for more legal theft and that only benefits the (mainly foreign) investors in our telecoms companies. There's a good reason people like to invest overseas: they don't feel as guilty ripping people in another country off as they would if it was more local!

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