NZ Commerce Commission recommends scrapping mobile tower co-location rules
New Zealand's Commerce Commission has advised the Government to drop 25-year-old co-location rules, saying they bind no one now that Spark, One NZ and 2degrees have sold their towers. The Minister decides, and the rules stay in force until he acts.
The Commerce Commission has asked the New Zealand Government to remove mobile co-location from the Telecommunications Act 2001, on the basis that the regulated service now covers nobody. Telecommunications Commissioner Tristan Gilbertson sent a letter and a final report to Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith on 27 October 2026. Under co-location, a mobile operator fits its antennas and radios to a competitor's tower instead of putting up its own beside it.
The Commission said the regime was designed for a period when operators owned their towers and had scant reason to let rivals on. Spark, One NZ and 2degrees have since sold their towers to specialist firms, with Connexa taking the Spark and 2degrees towers and Fortysouth taking One NZ's. The Act names as access provider every person who operates a cellular mobile network, so the companies that own the towers sit outside it. In his letter to the Minister, Gilbertson wrote that "The regulation therefore currently performs no function and provides no backstop."
According to the Commission, no evidence of systemic access problems or disputes has emerged in the three years since the towers changed owners. Gilbertson said tower companies earn money by attracting several tenants, which gives them reason to support sharing, and that the Commission concluded: "We found no significant barriers preventing access to mobile towers." The report adds that the sale contracts last 15 to 20 years and include build obligations, covering 670 new towers for Connexa under its Spark deal, 390 sites for Fortysouth under its One NZ deal and 450 for Connexa under its 2degrees deal.
The Commission also cited other sharing arrangements, such as RAN sharing at Rural Connectivity Group sites, where all three operators serve customers from one set of equipment. On a possible fourth network, it said a new entrant would probably find commercial deals available with tower companies, and that national roaming is still a regulated service under the Act.
The Commission received two submissions on its July draft. One NZ supported removal, while the Technology Users Association of New Zealand opposed it, arguing that long master services agreements with the three incumbents could lock in advantages a small entrant would struggle to match. TUANZ also pointed out that Australia's competition regulator has been questioning whether its access rules fit a market with towers sold off, and asked for formal annual monitoring of access, pricing and tenancy terms if the Commission went ahead. The Commission answered that the current rules cannot deliver such a safeguard because they already miss the tower owners, and it called Australia a limited comparison because Telstra kept some towers. It said it will keep watching the market through its annual telecommunications monitoring reports, and that the Act allows it to investigate and recommend a new regulated service if a problem appears.
The Minister may accept the recommendation, reject it or ask for clarification, and the rules remain in the Act until he removes them. Newswire noted that with a general election on 7 November, the decision may fall to whoever holds the portfolio afterwards. Separately, the Commission is due to rule by 23 November 2026 on the proposed One NZ and 2degrees joint venture to run their radio access networks together.