The rules are set out in NBN Co's special access undertaking (SAU) lodged with the ACCC last December - and highly criticised by the industry. The ACCC had to accept or reject the undertaking (it cannot request modifications).
Following concerns raised earlier with the SAU, and industry consultation, NBN Co had promised to lodge a new version, and says it will do so soon.
In a letter to Michael Cosgrave, general manager of the ACCC's Communications Group, NBN Co's head of product management & industry relations, Jim Hassell, said: "NBN Co has been working with the ACCC and industry stakeholders in relation to the preparation of a revised SAU in accordance with the outline released by the ACCC on 20 June 2012.
"These discussions have been of considerable assistance to NBN Co as we have progressed the detailed drafting of the revised SAU, and we anticipate lodging the revised SAU with the ACCC for assessment very shortly."
|
|
The undertaking sets out terms and conditions under which NBN Co will provide service providers with access to its fibre, satellite and wireless networks. Once accepted by the ACCC it becomes a binding document the terms of which will be overseen and enforced by the ACCC.
One of the main concerns raised with the original SAU was that it did not give the ACCC sufficient regulatory oversight of NBN Co's agreements with service providers. These will also be government by NBN Co's Wholesale Broadband Agreement, which will be a commercial contract between NBN Co and each service provider and outside ACCC jurisdiction.
Back in June Optus and the Competitive Carriers Coalition - which represents a number of major telcos - jointly complained to the ACCC about what they said was a lack of regulatory oversight of NBN Co's Wholesale Broadband Agreement.
In April Optus, VHA, AAPT, Macquarie Telecom, iiNet (including its subsidiaries) Primus, Adam Internet and the CCC along with ACCAN all made submissions to the ACCC's supplementary consultation paper on the SAU in which they set out numerous and serious concerns.
In June the ACCC gave a foretaste of what the revised undertaking would contain, saying: "For example, the proposed modular design balances NBN Co's requirement for certainty on long-term cost recovery with the need to undertake regular reviews of the detailed terms of access.
"Similarly, the proposal that the revised SAU will specify reference offers and use a building block model to determine revenue constraints on NBN Co appears to provide some reasonable constraints on NBN Co's pricing over time."
NBN Co said at the time that: "The revised SAU approach strikes a better balance between providing certainty on NBN Co's long term cost recovery arrangements and flexibility for the other regulatory terms to evolve as required over time. It also ensures a more explicit role for the ACCC in assessing the reasonableness of NBN Co's proposals at regular intervals throughout the SAU's term."
