Under ACCC pressure, NBN Co starts fourth round of consultation over wholesale service contracts

Stuart Corner
Friday, 30 September 2011 12:55

IT Policy - Regulation

In response to concerns raised by the ACCC, NBN Co has released a fourth version of its Wholesale Broadband Agreement (WBA) - the key contact document under which it will supply all of its products and services to its wholesale customers.

NBN Co said: "In releasing the WBA, NBN Co wishes to provide its customers with a further opportunity to consider and discuss with NBN Co the substance of the documents prior to publication as a Standard Form of Access Agreement in the coming weeks."

However the ACCC said that the industry had raised doubts about the timeframes within which NBN Co was seeking execution of the Wholesale Broadband Agreement by access seekers. "A particular concern was that the agreement potentially allowed for only limited ACCC oversight of the terms and conditions of access to NBN Co's services," it said.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said: "The Parliament has recognised the key role that the ACCC should play overseeing NBN access issues. The ACCC therefore expects that NBN Co will structure its access arrangements to allow for regulated outcomes should this prove necessary."

NBN Co said: "It is NBN Co's intention to continue to meet with customers wishing to engage on the latest draft of the WBA prior to publishing a Standard Form of Access Agreement. As part of this engagement, NBN Co will assess the requirements of the industry to move from trial to more certain commercial arrangements ahead of scaled network deployment, and inform its decisions about its next steps on the basis of the views expressed by both industry and the ACCC."

Because NBN Co will have a monopoly on the NBN the services it provides will be 'declared' by the ACCC which means they will be subject to rules on pricing and non-price terms and conditions designed to ensure that NBN does not exploit its monopoly to charge high prices and that it does not discriminate between wholesale customers. Such a regime has applied to several Telstra monopoly services since industry liberalisation in 1997.

The legislation provides two mechanisms to ensure that NBN Co does not exploit its monopoly power. It can publish a Standard Form of Access Agreement (SFAA) on the service or it can lodge a Special Access Undertaking (SAU) with the ACCC. Contracts with individual access seekers will be governed by the terms of these documents.

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