Telco industry group presents FTTx manifesto to Gov't

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 06 March 2008 09:33

IT Policy - Regulation

Many of the group's proposals are already well established: it recommends open access networks with regulated access pricing, self regulation as much as possible but with legislation that would effectively divide the industry into access and application sectors,

FTTN is seen only as an intermediate goal towards full FTTP. "An FTTP solution will be a 5-10 year process...Accordingly, the industry accepts FTTN as a necessary step but not as a goal in itself. A staged approach towards an agreed end goal of FTTP, should result in avoiding an overbuilds of infrastructure, promote more realistic investments and avoid endless regulatory debate along the way."

It suggests that bidders for the Government's proposed National Broadband Network should be required to "indicate and co-ordinate their plans for investment with other bidders...When building a national infrastructure, cooperation is essential either voluntarily or via legislation. As a country, Australia can't afford to waste resources through overbuilding where it is not economically viable (as is the case for most of regional Australia)."

It also calls on the government to "set affordability goals, coverage targets and time frames for initiatives such as e-health, e-education and smart grids, so that the industry can develop appropriate infrastructure plans to support them."

The group believes that the government's earmarked $4.7 billion budget should, in principle, be restricted to the least economically viable parts of the network and should be supplemented with regulatory controls that actively encourage investment in other parts."