| Another ULL access dispute |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Monday, 13 March 2006 | |
  
It follows one from Optus subsidiary XYZed lodged last week and joins earlier ones on the ULL lodged by Optus PowerTel and iiNet. The ACCC is presently assessing an access undertaking from Telstra proposing a flat $30 per month charge for the ULL anywhere in Australia. Telstra has already written to access seekers saying it intends to introduce this charge in advance of any ACCC decision and replacing a scale of charges ranging from $13 per month in CBDs and $22 per month in other urban areas to $149 in rural Australia. The ACCC says it intends to maintain the de-averaged pricing but in his address to Australian Telecommunications Users Group conference last week, ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel indicated that the price range in the ACCC's final assessment may not be so great. "With regard to the level of ULL pricing, there have been countless reports stating that the ACCC's preferred ULL price for metropolitan areas is $13 and $149 for remote areas. It would be fair to suggest there has been a bit of exaggeration here, because while the ACCC has suggested ULL prices in metropolitan areas should be lower, it has not suggested they should be set at $13 in the foreseeable future. All that the ACCC has said on this issue is that there could be different approaches for allocating ULL-specific costs,"Samuel said. "Furthermore, the ACCC does not endorse Telstra's claim that efficient costs of remote areas are $149 - this is a conservative upper bound estimate, based on Telstra's model and most of its inputs." |
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