Stuart Corner
Thursday, 17 May 2007 17:20
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 1 of 2
The ACC is celebrating a significant victory over Telstra after the Australian Competition Tribunal rejected Telstra's appeal against an ACCC decision on Telstra's proposed price for access to the unbundled local loop.
This is the price Telstra wanted to charge other telcos and ISPs for use of the copper loop from the exchange to a customer. It is the fourth time in a year that the ACT has ruled in favour of the ACCC on a Telstra appeal against an ACCC decision, and will do much to undermine Telstra's concerted attacks on the ACCC, and its chairman Graeme Samuel, over his refusal to agree to Telstra's FTTN proposal.
"This decision is fundamental to Telstra's current broadband FTTN proposal," Samuel, said. "An FTTN network brings fibre closer to the customer, but continues to use part of the legacy copper network." He noted that the substantive area of disagreement on costs under Telstra's FTTN proposal had been over access to the remaining copper, not fibre, saying: "This makes the need for Telstra to release its FTTN costing for public examination even more pressing."
According to the ACCC, the ACT "comprehensively" rejected Telstra's proposed price for the ULL. "The Tribunal rejected Telstra's appeal...on seven major grounds and affirmed the ACCC's decision of 25 August 2006 to reject Telstra's price undertakings," the ACCC said in a statement. Telstra had proposed a geographically averaged monthly price of $30 per line.
When it provisionally rejected Telstra's proposed pricing last June, the ACCC said it believed that Telstra's proposed average price was unlikely to promote competition on its merits and likely to heavily distort the use of and investment in telecommunications infrastructure. The ACCC also noted that "Telstra's prices ... adopt a proposed method of cost recovery for ULLS specific costs which has now been rejected by the Australian Competition Tribunal following Telstra's appeal on its undertaking for the Line Sharing Service."
