Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) opposes Governments plan to split it into three companies

Telecom New Zealand (TNZ), the nation's dominant carrier, proposed selling off its copper-line network rather than submit to a government- imposed scheme that would split the company three ways.
The government plan supposedly is designed to foster competition, but TNZ says it would destroy the carrier. TNZ and the government have been sparring over some sort of restructuring since last summer. The government, in a plan that went to the New Zealand Parliament and was published in a final form last week, wants to chop the company up into a trio of units - wholesale, retail and the copper-wire telephone network - all of which would remain part of TNZ. This scheme will be forced on TNZ by 2010. In theory, the New Zealand government's plan is based on what happened to BT in the U.K.

TNZ Chairman Wayne Boyd unveiled TNZ's plan to simply sell off its copper lines. It could cost TNZ more than $240 million to implement the government plan, forcing it to hire 700 extra workers plus incurring substantial ongoing costs.
Instead, Boyd proposed that TNZ simply sell off its copper network, which reaches 1.4 million of New Zealand's 1.7 million households. what price TNZ might expect to get for the network, which is said to have a theoretical book value of $1.5 billion remains a question mark. One possibility floated was also that, rather than selling the network, TNZ would instead cut it in half, creating a separate company with existing TNZ shareholders receiving pro rata shares in the new company.
According to TNZ, selling the network will create "a structurally separated access network company that would have the ability to earn a commercial rate of return, a simpler separation model so resources can focus on faster delivery of local loop unbundling and naked DSL, downstream de-regulation to enable telecom retail to compete and innovate, and committed broadband network investment from telecom."
Boyd also argued that the government plan took no account of emerging fiber technology, which is replacing copper and which would leave TNZ with a network unit that couldn't compete in the emerging environment.