NZ Commerce Commission urges scrapping of tower co-location rules

New Zealand's Commerce Commission has recommended that the Government remove the mobile co-location rules from the Telecommunications Act 2001, saying they no longer bind anyone now that the three mobile operators have sold their towers. The recommendation went to Minister Paul Goldsmith on 27 October 2026 in a final report and a letter from Telecommunications Commissioner Tristan Gilbertson.

Co-location lets one operator install its antennas and radios on a rival's tower rather than build a separate one. Gilbertson said the rules were written for a time when operators owned the towers and had little reason to give competitors access. Spark, One NZ and 2degrees have since sold their tower infrastructure to specialist companies, Connexa and Fortysouth. According to Gilbertson, those companies earn money by attracting several tenants to each tower, which gives them a commercial reason to support sharing.

The legal gap is that the Act defines the access provider as any person who operates a cellular mobile network, and the tower companies do not run one. The report said the regulated service no longer applies to anyone, and Gilbertson told the Minister that "The regulation therefore currently performs no function and provides no backstop." The Commission said no party has been subject to the rules in the three years since the sales, and it has seen no evidence of systemic access problems or disputes. Gilbertson said: "We found no significant barriers preventing access to mobile towers."

The report points to long-term sale agreements, running 15 to 20 years with build commitments. Connexa committed to 670 new towers over 10 years in its Spark deal and 450 under its 2degrees deal, while Fortysouth committed to 390 new sites for One NZ. The report cites company announcements showing Spark put a $900 million price on 70 per cent of its tower business in July 2022, while 2degrees disclosed a $1.076 billion sale of its towers that December.

The Commission also cited other forms of sharing, including RAN sharing at Rural Connectivity Group sites, where all three operators serve customers from the same equipment. On a possible fourth network, it said a new entrant would likely be able to seek commercial arrangements with tower companies, and that national roaming remains a regulated service.

Submissions were split. One NZ backed removal, while the Technology Users Association of New Zealand opposed it. TUANZ argued that regulation is hard to win back once lost, that long master services agreements could lock in advantages for the incumbents, and that Australia's competition regulator has been questioning whether its own access rules still fit. It asked for annual monitoring of tower access, pricing and tenancy terms if the Commission proceeded. The Commission replied that the existing rules cannot provide that safeguard because they already miss the tower owners, and that bringing tower companies into the regime would need a separate investigation it does not think is warranted. It said it will keep watching through its annual telecommunications monitoring reports, and can investigate and recommend a new regulated service if problems emerge.

The rules stay in the Act until the Minister removes them, and he can accept, reject or seek clarification on the recommendation. With a general election on 7 November, the decision may fall to whoever holds the portfolio afterwards.