New Zealand’s tower-sharing rule has the wrong landlord

Summary

New Zealand’s 2001 co-location designation was written for mobile operators that owned towers; the Commerce Commission says it no longer applies to the specialist companies that own them now.
The Commission has recommended deleting the dormant service from Schedule 1. The Minister must decide; access today is negotiated commercially.

The landlord changed. The legal address did not.

In 2001, New Zealand’s Telecommunications Act put co-location on cellular mobile sites in Schedule 1. The service let one mobile network operator install equipment on a tower owned, managed or leased by another operator. The Act’s access-provider definition points to a person operating a cellular mobile network. That made sense when the network company also owned the steel.

The Commission says the rule helped 2degrees enter the market in 2009 and supported later network expansion. Then the industry rearranged its property portfolio. Between 2022 and 2023, Spark, One NZ and 2degrees sold their passive tower infrastructure. Connexa and Fortysouth became the specialist owners named in the Commission’s report.

Those companies own sites; they do not operate mobile networks. The statutory definition therefore misses them. In its final report, the Commission draws a distinction between co-location as an activity and the regulated service listed in the Act. Towers still host equipment from multiple users. The listed service, it says, no longer applies to anyone.

That is the real news in the Commission’s 27 October letter to the Minister: it recommends removing the provision from Schedule 1 because the market has already moved beyond it. The Minister for Media and Communications has the decision. The official investigation page records the final report as delivered on 27 October; the Act’s Schedule 1 still contains the service until the Minister changes it.

The Commission’s commercial case is straightforward. TowerCos earn more when they attract tenants, and its review says operators have negotiated access without regulatory intervention since the tower sales. It reports no significant barriers to access and no non-MNO submission describing an access problem in this investigation. The Commission’s conclusion is that commercial incentives now do work the 2001 rule was designed to force.

The strongest objection is about the next entrant, not today’s established operators. TUANZ warned that long-term agreements could reserve capacity, delay access or set terms that favour incumbents. The Commission answers that the current designation never covered TowerCos, capacity reservations or tenancy ratios; keeping it would not fix those concerns. A new rule would need a new investigation designed for the present ownership structure.

What changes next

Nothing changes in the statute on the day the report is delivered. The Minister may accept or reject the recommendation. If accepted, Schedule 1 loses a service the Commission says is already functionally stranded. Commercial site agreements remain the operating layer.