Telstra's operational separation plan "a disgrace" says CCC

Stuart Corner
Monday, 06 February 2006 08:20

IT Policy - Regulation

The Competitive Carrier's Coalition (CCC) has branded Telstra's preliminary draft operational separation plan, released on Friday, "a disgrace".

According to the CCC, it contains none of the detail that was clearly expected by the Government. "Telstra has simply done a cut and paste on the direction it received from the Minister outlining what it must do and said 'trust us, we will fill in the detail later'," CCC executive director David Forman said.

He called for the draft plan to be rejected outright and for Telstra to be told to start from scratch. "If the legislation or Ministerial directive are not strong enough to control this behaviour, then they should be amended so Telstra is brought under control," he said.

Release of the preliminary draft follows receipt of a ministerial direction last year. Announcing the move, communications minister, Senator Helen Coonan, said: "Operational separation is designed to increase the transparency of Telstra's internal operations and require Telstra to demonstrate that it provides its wholesale customers equivalent treatment to its own retail businesses. When implemented, operational separation will also require Telstra to maintain separate retail, wholesale and network business units."

Telstra's preliminary operational separation plan is available at the Telstra Wholesale web site here,