Telstra pre-empts ACCC, imposes $30 per month ULL fee

Stuart Corner
Monday, 06 February 2006 08:21

IT Policy - Regulation

According to the Competitive Carriers' Coalition (CCC) Telstra has written to all its wholesale customers informing them that it intends to charge a rate of $30 per month for its unconditioned local loop service (ULL).

This is the price Telstra has proposed in its latest undertaking on the ULL, submitted to the ACCC in December. The ACCC rejected an earlier undertaking which proposed prices of $13 in CBDs, $22 in suburbs, $40 in regional and $100 in rural and remote location. One customer, iiNet, in a briefing to brokers last week on the ULL, confirmed that it currently pays "about $22".

The CCC claimed that, with the new price,the price of retail broadband services would likely rise by by $10 or more a month. It suggested that Telstra customers would not escape the rise "It seem[s] impossible that Telstra could continue to offer a full retail broadband service for less than $30 when it [is] claiming that the cost of the copper wire alone [is] more than that."

The ACCC has only just commenced assessing Telstra's access undertaking proposing geographically de-averaged prices. After strenuous lobbying of the Government by Telstra, the Government has asked the ACCC to advise it on ULL costs. The CCC commented: "The Prime Minister put in place a process in December to ask the ACCC for advice on the appropriate cost of wholesale unconditioned local loop (ULL), the basic input to broadband, to try to put to an end months of special pleading by Telstra. Telstra  has thumbed its nose at that process by writing to its wholesale customers today to tell them that it will introduce a national price of $30."