Telstra hits back at CCC demands, cites business confidentiality

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 13 September 2011 18:40

IT Policy - Regulation

Dominant carrier Telstra, has hit back at demands from its competitors to make public financial information relating to its proposed structural separation in the wake of the National Broadband Network, citing commercial sensitivity of some of the data.

 

The Competitive Carriers Coalition (CCC) earlier today released a statement  in which it demanded that Telstra publish the output of its internal cost allocation model and a timeline for its proposed implementation of its Structural Separation Undertaking (SSU)  proposals.

The output of the internal cost model will provide the basis on which the ACCC and other stakeholders can assess whether Telstra's prices to competitors, for access to its fixed network, meet the equivalence test required by legislation, the CCC says.

However, Telstra insists that while it is happy to comply with the requirements SSU there is certain information that is simply too confidential to be released to competitors, as is the case with all businesses.

Craig Middleton, Acting Director of External Affairs, Telstra, released a statement to iTWire as a response to the CCC statement:

"We are committed to an open and transparent process. Consistent with that we have published an indicative rate card so that industry has an idea of the price outcomes they can expect should the SSU be accepted.

"However, there are elements of the SSU that rely on Telstra making open and transparent to the Regulator highly confidential information, including from TEM, our internal management reporting system. It is important to note that TEM is not a hypothetical cost model based on assumptions, it is a record of our actual and commercially sensitive revenues and costs.

"While we have to keep our internal management reports confidential from our competitors, as would any other company, should the SSU commence we will publish detailed extracts from the audited TEM for the 2011/12 year. We are obviously not in a position to publish those extracts now, because the 2011/12 year has not yet finished."