ISPs claim Comms Alliance hijacked by Telstra over LSS-ULLS migration

by Stuart Corner

Monday, 18 August 2008

Page 2 of 3 In its progress report Comms Alliance concluded that development of a single process for the migration of LSS to ULLS would be a costly and time consuming activity, and unlikely to return the investment required to develop it before the demand for such a service had either been substantially met, or had declined significantly. It also noted that the demand for a single LSS to ULLS process had not been substantiated. "Although Roundtable members could hypothesise as to the potential demand, none of the member organisations had any plans to migrate their entire LSS base to ULLS, or could provide data that would substantiate any particular demand level." It further concluded that demand for LSS was likely to peak in July 2009 and then decline, with negative growth forecasted from that point. iiNet is not a member of Comms Alliance so did not participate in the roundtable. However it is far from happy with the process. In a submission to the ACCC on the Comms Alliance progress report, Chime CEO and iiNet general manager of regulatory and corporate affairs Steve Dalby dismissed Comms Alliance's claim that there was no real need for a process and was highly critical of the roundtable saying "Chime is very disappointed with the report, which we consider flawed, heavily weighted in favour of Telstra's position and in no way reflective of competing industry views or the interests of consumers. "Chime has supported the urgent need for an LSS to ULLS migration process for approximately two years. Telstra has repeatedly ignored our requests for development of such a process. We do not consider the series of steps required to firstly cancel an LSS-delivered service and then re-apply for a new service (delivered via ULLS) as a 'process'." According to Dalby, "Clearly, it is in Telstra's commercial interests to stymie an LSS to ULLS migration process as it will negatively affect Telstra's retail market with Telstra PSTN customers migrating to cheaper, more attractive products provided via the ULLS...[and] from discussions with Roundtable participants, we understand that Telstra firmly steered the Roundtable process to ensure that Telstra's interests were paramount and that any competing views were sidelined." Dalby concluded: "We consider the report basically represents Telstra's views to the exclusion of all others. We are extremely disappointed that Communications Alliance has allowed an industry forum to proceed on this basis and put Communications Alliance's name on the document produced and provided to the ACCC." CONTINUED << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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