ACCC trying to regulate the NBN, and much more, warns Telstra

Stuart Corner
Monday, 08 February 2010 09:27

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

Telstra has warned that rule changes proposed by the ACCC to 'declared' data transmission services could effectively extend regulation to "NBN Co's proposed new bitstream ethernet services...wholesale DSL, broadband cable Internet, IP-VPN, and VPLS services in the access network." Most of Telstra's competitors disagree.

In November 2009 the ACCC launched a public enquiry into the declared digital transmission capacity service (DTCS) to clarify whether the current service description incorporates all transmission interface protocols commonly used over the Australian network.

It proposed to extend the definition to include ethernet, arguing that is desirable to make the definition technologically neutral.

As it stands today the service description for the DTCS specifies specific transmission rates which effectively restricts it to interface protocols known as PDH (Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy) and SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy). Ethernet is becoming increasingly common.

When a service is declared any carrier offering that service over its infrastructure must make the service available to other service providers (access seekers) on fair and reasonable terms.

The declared services regime was put in place in 1997 when Telstra lost its monopoly and has been the cornerstone of the competitive telecommunications regime, and of much controversy, ever since.

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