ACCC takes Telstra to court for blocking access seekers from exchanges

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 19 March 2009 07:11

IT Industry - Market

The ACCC has initiated legal action against Telstra for, allegedly, making false claims that there was no space in several key exchanges to enable competitors to install equipment and thereby serve customers connected to those exchanges.


This is the first time the ACCC has taken action on this problem which has been frequently cited as a major issue by access seekers over several years. The rules are clear and if the court finds that Telstra has repeatedly broken them over a lengthy period to thwart competition, its judgement will focus attention on the need to ensure that Telstra is not similarly able to delay the rollout of a future NBN, despite legislation designed to prevent this happening.

Section 152AR of the Trade Practices Act requires Telstra to permit access seekers to install equipment in its exchange connected to customer telephone lines so they can supply voice and/or ADSL broadband services to consumers using the unconditioned local loop service or the line sharing service.

The ACCC alleges that Telstra has refused access seeker requests for interconnection at seven key metropolitan exchanges by claiming that they were 'capped'. In particular, the ACCC says: "Telstra claimed that there was no capacity on the main distribution frames available for access seekers to interconnect their equipment to the copper wires running to customer homes." The ACCC alleges that there was capacity available, or that could have been made available, on Telstra's main distribution frames.

The ACCC also alleges that Telstra has breached the access regime in the Telecommunications Act which requires Telstra to provide access to its facilities. Both the standard access obligations in the Trade Practices Act and the access regime in the Telecommunications Act are conditions of Telstra's carrier licence.

The ACCC has also accused Telstra of engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct in contravention of section 52 of the Trade Practices Act by making false statements about the lack of exchange capacity to access seekers individually and on lists of 'capped' exchanges published on the Telstra Wholesale website.

The ACCC is seeking declarations, pecuniary penalties and injunctions. The matter has been listed for a directions hearing in the Federal Court, Melbourne at 10.15 am on Friday, 17 April 2009 before Justice Middleton.