Stuart Corner
Thursday, 22 May 2008 07:53
Opinion and Analysis
Page 3 of 5
The requirement of Telstra as the universal service provider to produce a plan, to be approved by the government, that would detail how it proposed to meet its universal service obligation of providing basic telephony and payphone services to all Australians;
- The creating of an independent regulatory body - then Austel, later the Australian Communications Authority and now the Australian Communications and Media Authority - to implement and oversee the new regime (Responsibility for competition regulation was removed and transferred to the ACCC by the 1997 legislation;
- Introduction of the CPI-x price cap for services where monopoly power enabled Telecom/Telstra to set prices without regard to market forces;
More importantly, the new regulator, Austel was given some very specific tasks the outcomes of which loom large in today's telecoms environment. One of Austel's first priorities was "to report on the implications of licensing an additional operator of cellular mobile telephone services with rights of interconnection to Telecom's public switched telephone network, having regard for the implications that such services may have for the orderly and efficient development of the national telecommunications system, and for the continued capacity of Telecom to provide the cross-subsidies required to meet its essential community service obligations."
Another key role for Austel was "to monitor the appropriateness of the boundaries of the monopoly...[and] to make recommendations concerning the boundaries of the monopoly..."
A New Framework argued, quite rightly, that: "The rate of technological change is accelerating, creating new pressures for innovation...This in turn creates new practical difficulties for any regulation that is directed at limiting competition."
A New Framework also promised that "the ownership arrangements or structural relationships among the three carriers...will be subject to review after the main elements of the reform package embodied in this statement have been put in place."
However other developments were overtaking the planned timetable along with the idea that there would be only one cellular network competitor: and that was the parlous financial state of Government owned satellite operator Aussat.
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