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Telecommunications Act 2001

Networks - Right of access to use existing electricity works for telecommunications and deploying fibre optic cable

155ZR: Purposes

You could also call this:

"Helping rural New Zealand get better internet access"

Illustration for Telecommunications Act 2001

The purpose of this part of the law is to help people living in rural areas of New Zealand. You will get better access to fast internet, which can help you with things like online learning, talking to doctors, and doing your banking. This can also help businesses and schools in rural areas.

This law wants to make it easier for companies to put fibre optic cables in rural areas by using existing electricity infrastructure like power poles. You can think of fibre optic cables like special roads for internet data.

The law also says that companies using this infrastructure must make sure the people who own the land where the infrastructure is located get some benefits. The companies must also follow rules that make sure everyone can use the infrastructure fairly.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM7242729.

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Part 4Networks
Right of access to use existing electricity works for telecommunications and deploying fibre optic cable

155ZRPurposes

  1. The overall purpose of this subpart is to make a significant contribution to the work and personal lives of people residing in rural areas of New Zealand, in particular, by enabling existing electricity infrastructure to be used for deploying fibre optic cable and, by that means,—

  2. accelerate the roll-out of fibre-to-the-premises in those areas; and
    1. enable access to high-speed communications for businesses, for schools, and for individual purposes, including for accessing health, banking, and other services, and for establishing and maintaining social and support networks.

      1. To those ends, the other purposes of this subpart are to—

      2. provide owners of existing works (including power poles, overhead lines, and other infrastructure connected with the generation, conversion, transformation, or conveyance of electricity) with a right to enter rural and other land on which those existing works are situated and use the works for the purposes of deploying, maintaining, and upgrading fibre optic cable for delivering telecommunications services; and
        1. ensure that the owners of the existing works provide the owners of the land on which those works are situated with direct benefits to offset the impact of the right of entry on the landowner’s own property rights; and
          1. ensure that owners of existing works and third parties are subject to open access obligations enforceable by the Commission and that owners of existing works may be subject to other regulatory action if they are not exercising their rights under this subpart and are refusing third party requests for arrangements enabling third parties to use those rights for deploying fibre optic cable.

            Notes
            • Section 155ZR: inserted, on , by section 13 of the Telecommunications (Property Access and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2017 (2017 No 16).