Stuart Corner
Friday, 07 March 2008 03:16
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 2 of 3
Instead, he says that communication between users should be recognised as the prime purpose of telecommunications and that the regulatory regime should not reward discriminatory practices that detract from the development of a networked information economy.
Kelso's conclusions are drawn largely from case studies: of the Telstra/Foxtel pay TV network, TransACT's broadband network in the ACT and of fibre to the home networks in general.
He holds up the TransACT network - a fibre to the curb network serving homes in the ACT - as a prime example of how access to monopoly infrastructure can work when the developer and owner of that infrastructure starts out with this at the heart of its business case.
"TransACT was conceived in 1996, operational by 2000 and designed from the outset as an open access network capable of connecting a variety of service providers to customers, each with its own data stream of up to 52Mbps." According to Kelso, it is unique within Australia and similar operations are rare elsewhere. "TransACT made no call on the access regime - there was simply a willingness by the network provider to be open."
He concludes that, given the inevitability of a single fibre access network in the future, a regulatory regime that unequivocally made communications between users the primary purpose of telecommunications would do much to ensure open and fair access to this monopoly network.
While the concept of any-to-any connectivity to promote the long term interests of end users was a pillar of the 1997 Telecommunications Act, Kelso argues that this has been substantially subordinated to the need to provide incentives for and limit the risks to investors in new network infrastructure.
