The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
The ACCC has issued its telecommunications market indicators report for the 2005-2006 financial year, covering PSTN and mobile retail services provided by the five largest carriers: Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Primus and AAPT.
Telstra's position of strength in most markets has changed little in the five years for which the reports have been produced: it accounted for 75 percent of fixed line revenue in 2005-2006. However the fortunes of the smaller carriers declined significantly that year.
Total PSTN revenue for AAPT and Primus combined declined from $847 million to $730 million due to declining call revenues. Telstra suffered a much smaller percentage decline, from $6.6b to $6.1b and Optus PSTN revenues remained steady, with increased revenue from access charges offsetting the decline in call revenues.
The reports, which have been published annually since 2001-2002 are based on information the carriers are required to provide under the Regulatory Accounting Framework. Their main purpose is to enable an assessment of changes over time in the Australian telecoms market.
Services covered are: line rental; local calls; domestic long distance calls; international calls; fixed-to-mobile calls; Internet services; GSM and CDMA network services. The report also provides revenue and usage information on domestic PSTN origination/termination and GSM origination/termination. 3G services are not covered.
On the basis of trends identified in the report, mobile revenues will by now have passed fixed service revenues: for 2005-2006 mobile revenues were $7.8b, 4.5 percent up on the previous year. Total PSTN revenues were down 7.7 percent to $8.14 billion. And these figures do not include 3G services. Telstra formally launched its 3G service in September 2005, Optus and Vodafone in November 2005.
In 2005-2006 Telstra's share of the mobile market, by subscribers, fell sharply - a trend likely to have been reversed with the introduction of Next G. Telstra share of total SIO decreased to 48 percent in 2005-06 compared to 52 percent in the previous year, while Optus and Vodafone's share of total SIO increased slightly in 2005-06. However, Telstra's revenue from mobile services remained steady in 2005-06 at $3.491 billion while Optus and Vodafone's revenues increased.
The total number of mobile services in operation (SIO) increased to 17.56 million in 2005-06, an increase of 15.6 percent on the previous year. Again, these figures do not include 3G.
David Bass
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