Informer 273: 19 August 2015

Changes to billing of Baseband and Spark Wholesale POTS monthly rental and Spark Wholesale POTS installation charges will remove the need for a monthly wash up.

What's happening?

The Commerce Commission's UBA Initial Pricing Principle Decision (UBA IPP) came into effect on 1 December 2014 and the implementation of these pricing changes meant that we introduced a monthly billing wash up pending completing permanent billing changes. We will now be making changes to Baseband and Spark Wholesale POTS billing that means that, effective 10 October 2015, we will no longer need to complete this wash up. 

What's the detail?

Changes to rental charges for Baseband and Spark Wholesale POTS

Since 1 December 2014 we have applied a monthly credit for rental charges for any Baseband line with broadband (UBA, VDSL).  We have also been applying for Spark a monthly credit for rental and installation charges for Spark Wholesale POTS (Agency POTS) with broadband. 

From 10 October, we will be introducing two rental charges for each Baseband and Spark Wholesale POTS plans i.e. charges where these services are on the same line as Broadband and where they are stand alone. This means that we will be charging correctly for the monthly rental for the relevant services and there will no longer be a need for any monthly wash-up credit.

From 10 October 2015 we will also begin migrating Wholesale POTS to new rental plans and Baseband lines to new sales terms. See Spark’s recent Informers for further detail about Spark’s new Wholesale POTS rental plans.

Changes to Spark Wholesale POTS installation charges

We charge on Spark’s behalf, installation charges for Wholesale POTS Business or Residential lines as well as a connection charge to activate the service on the Spark network. These installation charges reflect the cost to install Wholesale POTS services.

Since 1 December 2014 we have applied a bulk monthly credit for any Spark Wholesale POTS installation charges (not Spark Connection charges) where Wholesale POTS is ordered concurrently with Broadband. From 10 October 2015 we will credit these charges back on a line by line basis each month.

Spark Wholesale is also taking this opportunity to change their Business and Residential POTS plans. See Spark’s recent Informers for further detail.

Next steps

These changes to Baseband and Wholesale POTs plans, sales terms and billing descriptions may affect your provisioning and billing systems, so please make sure you fully understand these changes.  Our Service Delivery Managers will take you through a pack outlining the detail of these changes and their impact on you over the next week and will assist with any questions you may have.

Who do I contact?

For more information please contact your Service Delivery Manager.