New Zealand's third mobile network operator NZ Comms will launch in August as “2 degrees”.

The brand name, a play on six degrees of separation, was unveiled at an event at Auckland’s Gus Fisher gallery this morning, not too far from NZ Comm’s Newmarket HQ.

The name will be a possible boon for Central Otago winery Two Degrees, which already has dibs on the most obvious URL: www.twodegrees.co.nz.

Besides the brand name and launch month (a day was not specified), the event was short on detail.

From here on in, NZ Communications will trade as Two Degrees Ltd.

As expected, Two Degrees' network will run on W-CDMA 3G technology (the same platform as Vodafone’s 3G network and Telecom’s pending XT).

Customers will be able to keep their Vodafone 021 or Telecom 027 number after joining Two Degrees, or take one of the two-million number the carrier has reserved with its own 022 prefix. (Two Degrees originally had dibs on 024, but then realised it would have to share it with Antarctica. Everything about Two Degrees has a little dash of crazy.)

The company won't speak to its mix of contract versus pre-pay plans, but cites reseach it has carried out that finds "Kiwis are tired of being locked into lengthy contracts".

Two Degrees chief executive Mike Reynolds - formerly president of Starhub, the company that won the operator license for the Singapore government’s public-private fibre network - said download speeds would be equivalent to Vodafone and Telecom’s 3G networks. With a broad technical parity, the “value” each operator provided to customers would be of key importance, said Mr Reynolds.

However, at this point Mr Reynolds refuses to name any pricing plans, or if he intends to undercut the incumbents. The 2 degrees website, also launched today, offers few more clues.

The Two Degrees boss did say that no regulatory issues would hold up his company’s August launch.

The putative third mobile operator is keenly awaiting the result of Commerce Commission investigations into mobile roaming costs and mobile termination rates, or what telcos pay each other (or in Two Degrees' world view, don’t) when calls cross between their networks.

The company has also been a fierce critic of slow consent processing under the Resource Management Act, which it says has left gaps - so far - in its network as it covers Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch with more than 300 of its own cell towers. By launch, 400 should be in operation.

Outside of those areas, Two Degrees handsets will roam - invisibly, from the customer’s perspective - on Vodafone’s network.

But ultimately, Mr Reynolds said today, Two Degrees wants free itself from this roaming dependence on Vodafone, and built its own network nationwide.

Mr Reynolds would not comment on whether Two Degrees’ four current investors (Hautaki Trust, US telco investor Trilogy International Partners, London-based Communications Venture Partners and Hong Kong-based General Enterprise Management) would pay for this expansion, or its cost, but said the plan was “fully funded”.

Two Degrees will sell its service through 2000 retail outlets - believed to included supermarkets and petrol stations. Mr Reynolds said some outlets would sell only SIM cars, some SIM cards and phones.

Mr Reynolds would not name any models in Two Degrees’ handset line-up, but did not that Apple and other manufacturers tended to prefer non-exclusive arrangements (and indeed, Vodafone confirms it does not have an exclusive agency for the iPhone here - although for now it remains the exclusive carrier; a sign Apple thinks it has the proven network for a good customer experience, the telco claims).