There was a seething sea of comments after NBR's story on Vodafone withdrawing its $12 Talk offer yesterday – widely seen as a last-minute manoeuvre to avoid mobile market regulation.

The new shape of 2degrees
Trilogy International Partners (US): 57%
CVP (UK): 28%
Hautaki Trust (NZ): 13%
KLR Holdings (Hong Kong): 2%

US telecommunications investment company Trilogy International Partners has been cleared to take a 100% stake in 2degrees, should it want to take up.

The Overseas Investment Office (OIO) released details of its green-light decision today.

Our new mobile operator’s launch went largely to script, with business users ignored (there’s no 3G data, data cards or BlackBerry support, for example, and international roaming rates are steep) but killer pre-pay rates that undercut Telecom and Vodafone by half. But even at the low-end of the market, 2degrees’ tactics could backfire, reckons one analyst.

A complaint to the Commerce Commission reveals our putative third mobile operator’s ambition to introduce “home zone” plans. Under such deals, a person can ditch their landline and go mobile-only, paying residential landline rates for calls made on their mobile when at home (or in Two Degrees broader definition, any designated local zone).

Monday was unusually, eerily calm for the New Zealand telecommunications industry.

The founder of New Zealand’s third mobile operator says an off-hand quip has been taken out of hand.

At Telecom’s XT launch, a hot rumour going around the Auckland Town Hall was that Tex Edwards was about to quit 2 Degrees.

Mr Edwards - variously described as “intense”, “quirky”, “charismatic” and “eccentric” - founded the company now known 2 Degrees in the year 2000, drawing on spectrum supplied by the Te Huarahi Tika Trust, and funding provided by Zimbabwe’s Eco-net.