MELBOURNE (Standard&Poor's) Dec. 4, 2012--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today said that its ratings on Chorus Ltd. (BBB/Stable) were unaffected by the New Zealand Commerce Commission's (NZCC) draft regulatory determination on Unbundled Bitstream Access (UBA) pricing. The draft decision, if implemented, could reduce Chorus' annual EBITDA by A$150 million to A$160 million from December 2014. The NZCC has also released its final decision on Unbundled Copper Local Loop (UCLL) pricing, which resulted in a relatively modest 3.8% decline in UCLL pricing (about a NZ$20 million reduction in annual EBITDA), compared with a 19.3% reduction proposed in the initial draft. We note that the draft pricing decision is based on a very narrow benchmarking group, and reflects the difficulties
