Stuart Corner
Friday, 07 March 2008 03:16
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 1 of 3
As the government prepares to spend $4.7b on a fibre to the node network and struggles with developing a suitable access regime, a PhD thesis by former Telstra executive, Ross Kelso , argues that the access regime is incapable of dealing with such a network.
He says it is too focussed on promoting the interests of network providers and those who use the network to deliver services rather than the interests of end users of those services and he calls for a new regime that puts communications between users as the overriding aim of regulation.
He accuses politicians on both sides of having paid only lip service to the importance of competition since 1993 and to have deferred to the demands of the dominant builder of telecommunications infrastructure.
According to Kelso, "...infrastructure involving optical fibre in the customer access network can create a monopoly of an enduring nature - particularly in the Australian context. It is capable of giving rise to complex technical and commercial bottlenecks that strongly encourage anti-competitive behaviour."
Kelso contends that "the first deep penetration of optical fibre into he customer access network will be the last installed" and that "the access regime is incapable of dealing with this situation...the only alternative to monopolistic delivery of next generation broadband services becomes effective service level competition."
But he argues that the track record of the access regime as applied to post PSTN wireline infrastructure augers badly for effective service level competition via optical fibre in the customer access network. "The access regime is wide open to gaming. Delay and lobbying become prime weapons in preventing third party access. Experience with unbundling the relatively well known paired copper access network bodes ill for the unbundling of future fibre optical cables."
He claims that the post 1997 regulatory regime in Australia has subsumed the interests of end user to those of network providers and access seekers. "The spirit of common carriage was poorly represented by the legislative concept of 'any-to-any connectivity' - a concept which in any case was made greatly subordinate to the need to provide incentives to investors."
