Stan Beer
Wednesday, 08 July 2009 08:23
IT Policy -
Government Tech Policy
Page 1 of 2
Despite the widespread ebullience about the announced Australian National Broadband Network, Telstra's competitors actually see it as a threat to their existing businesses - and they're right. This is the belief of a leading global telecommunications analyst.
David Kennedy, Research Director at Ovum,
believes that the NBN will impose less favourable conditions on
Telstra's major competitors than they currently enjoy using their own
DSLAMs on the regulated copper network.
"Telstra’s competitors are currently abandoning DSL resale and are
generating good operating margins on their installed DSLAMs," says
Kennedy in a research comment about the Government's call for further
submissions on the regulatory framework of the NBN.
"The NBN threatens this arrangement because it will ultimately force
them off regulated ULLS (Unconditioned Local Loop Service) into the
uncertainty of a wholesale fibre network, where wholesale pricing and
their ability to differentiate may be less favourable.
"We think these fears are well-founded, because the NBN will be far
more viable if ULLS is actually cut off as FTTH is rolled out, avoiding
revenue fragmentation and reducing the need for government subsidy of
the NBN.
"There is also a real prospect that the current de-averaged prices for
ULLS access, with lower prices in the cities, will give way to uniform
national wholesale pricing and push up access seekers’ costs in their
key markets."
iTWire recently published a
story explaining the genesis of a call by the Government for further input into the regulatory regime of the NBN.
However, in Kennedy's view, the short term goals of Telstra's
competitors do not coincide with those of the Government (read national
interest) and this is a major reason why the Government has issued a
call for further input on the regulatory regime of the NBN.
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