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At the centre of this battle is the vexatious issue of why other Telcos should pay Telecom a huge sum of money each year for what amounts to the use of some of its phone lines.

But hang on, when did the local loop get unbundled?

Well it didn't of course, but it seems that the government has decided (with much help from Telecom) that these other players ought to top up Telecom's coffers because, in order to access alternative toll-providers and other services, customers have to use Telecom's phone circuits.

But isn't that what interconnect fees are for?

Yes, that's true -- but this is an *additional* fee that is designed to offset the costs incurred by Telecom when it provides service to those non-profitable customers "forced" upon it by the provisions of what used to be called the Kiwi Share.

Well cry me a river, poor old Telecom.

Clearly, as indicated by its almost $1b a year profits, Telecom is clearly suffering under the burden of the Kiwi Share/TSO and really needs the financial support of its competitors -- not!

But hang on, why should Vodafone have to pay a fee to Telecom when it has its own nation-wide network and when a goodly percentage of the calls it handles go directly from 021 to 021 without entering Telecom's system at all?

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Now call me stupid (many do, and sometimes with good reason) but this sounds outrageous to me -- and clearly Malcolm Dick of CallPlus thinks the same.

Malcolm is a smart guy however, and instead of just bitching about it, he's restructured the CallPlus enterprise by splitting it into more than one legal entity in a manner that carefully dodges this "liable person" payment.

Of course Telecom and the government are quite naturally rather pee'd off by this move -- how dare someone outsmart them?

But how on earth can Telecom belly-ache about the costs associated with providing service to these "unprofitable" customers when they refuse to unbundle their copper so that others can provide that service?

Surely, if these customers are unprofitable, Telecom would love some other Telco to step in and provide them with this loss-making service -- but strangely, this isn't the case.

Me thinks Telecom doth protest too much.

And of course this situation once again raises the worrying issue of exactly why Telecom appears to have the government firmly in its pocket and why, when Theresa says "jump", Helen and her crew simply ask "how high"?

Until these questions are answered I don't expect we'll see any real competition in the provision of local calling or DSL-based broadband.

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