Competitors blast Telstra's NBN regulatory submission

Stuart Corner
Friday, 12 June 2009 18:53

IT Industry - Strategy

"After the roll-out of the NBN and when NBN Co is operating, the need for an operational separation regime applying to Telstra should be reviewed, as it is unlikely to be necessary in the presence of a majority Government-owned, open access, wholesale only, fibre network...The NBN Co will be a Government-owned universal wholesale provider of competitive wholesale services. In light of this, it is unlikely that its competitors will need to be subject to separation arrangements."

Telstra key proposal to address deficiencies in the access regime is the creation of an independent technical Telecommunications Adjudicator scheme could be established in Australia. "We believe that this would provide a targeted, practical and effective way to progress the various technical and process issues around wholesale access to specified bottleneck facilities."

Telstra's submission makes no offers of its involvement in or any contribution of any assets to the NBN. Rather it seems to envisage the NBN rollout occurring quite separate from any of its activities, with access to its facilities being gained under a modified form of the current access regime.

"It is clear the NBN will have much greater need for facilities access [than current telecoms networks] as it is rolled out around the country. It is also clear the NBN will need access to the facilities of other industries and utilities, not just the facilities of telecommunications operators. As a consequence, Telstra considers that moving the facilities access regime to come under Part IIIA of the Trade Practices Act would be the simplest and most straightforward solution to accommodate the rollout of the NBN. This solution would address the need to provide access to other industries' facilities infrastructure and ensure that one facilities access regime applies consistently to all facilities providers. This is consistent with the approach to telecommunications providers' access to facilities that has been adopted in many other countries."