Every night on this newscast - you see the marketing wars between Speednet - which you know as SMART - and Telemedia.
And indeed the competition is real and fierce on so many levels - but today executives from both companies sat down peaceably at the office of the Public Utilities Commission to sign an interconnection agreement.
You may not know what's in the fine print - but if you watch the news with any regularity, surely you've send the ads: SMART claims Telemedia intentionally blocked the switchover to its 3G system - while Telemedia claims that SMART wants it to proceed in contravention of the order of the courts.
Well, the PUC intervened and the matter has been settled. So today, both sides sat down to sign the agreement.
Chairman John Avery told us what it is about:
John Avery - Chairman, PUC
"This agreement simply prescribes the terms and conditions under which the parties will operate the interconnection their networks. I think what smart was trying to say is that they've acquired a new switch that will allow them to provide expanded, better services, and more services to their consumers. They and BTL had already discussed this thing, but I think that BTL's position finally was that until the agreement is signed and approved, they would not proceed with making any alterations to what currently exist. So now that this agreement has been signed and approved, they can proceed now to make their alterations according to this agreement. Speednet basically had its switches installed on BTL's property, and BTL's property is BTL's property. So you cannot really dictate to someone one what terms you will use their property. They have some right to decide what terms they will offer for you to use their property. So we understand now that Speednet is places taking its switch off BTL's compound, and so hopefully in the future, if they have any need to change, upgrade, alter, or whatever, that they would not have to rely on any action on BTL's part to do so."
Jules Vasquez
"Was BTL within its rights to say that they will not do anything until it is legally prescribed by the PUC, because it's a regulated utility?"
John Avery
"I would say that they were well within their rights. They could have adopted that position or they could have gone ahead and executed. It was really up to them, but we can't find faults in them adopting that position because, basically, you would have been executing something that wasn't approved, and wasn't legally enforceable."
In a statement, Smart says quote "This long awaited interconnection of the 3G network will address the problems of congestion affecting our...customers."
We could not reach SMART Executives to confirm that the 3g network had been or will be activated.
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