Following extensive preparation and consultation with you through our Investment Planning Consultation, yesterday we submitted our first Price – Quality proposal for Regulatory Period 1 to the Commerce Commission.

What’s happening

This proposal sets out our proposed plans for the three years from 1 January 2022, known as regulatory period 1 (RP1). Our proposal relates to fibre fixed line access services regulated by the Commerce Commission.  It reflects feedback your feedback on our consultation session earlier this year as well as feedback gathered through product and other customer engagement.

 The details  

You can find the headlines of our proposal in our release to the NZX here. In summary, we plan continued investment to:

• Complete UFB build and connect consumers to fibre
• meet the evolving needs of consumers and retailers and ensure sufficient capacity to meet growing demand
• evolve our business as we shift from UFB build to optimising our fibre network and services 

In RP1 average annual expenditure declines by approximately 29% compared to the prior period, mainly driven by completion of the UFB network build and slowing connection growth. Cost per connection declines for capital and operating expenditure by 9% and 8% respectively, reflecting higher connection volumes and improved efficiency. These declines reflects completion of UFB build in 2022 and slowing connection growth.  

We expect our proposal to be published by the Commission in late January / early February. The Commission intends to consult during 2021 as part of its evaluation of our proposal and reach a final decision late in 2021. We will provide further updates early in 2021 and look forward to further engaging with you. 

Next steps

We will be in touch early next year to offer briefings on our proposal. In the meantime, see here for more details. If you have any further questions or comments, please reach out to your Account Team or one of the key contacts listed on the website.

Contact

For any queries please contact your Account Team or the contacts listed on our dedicated project page here.