The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.
Nothing new here. Anyone who has followed telecommunications debate with even a passing interest will know that these problems have been raised, debated, claimed and refuted ad nauseum in recent years.
So what fresh insights does CEG-AP offer that will help Optus' cause? The answer is very little. Of its 21 pages only the six of section four are devoted directly to addressing the question; "What is the case for Structural Separation?" Sections one, two and three are respectively: an introduction, an examination of the issues and consideration of operational separation.
Section four neatly sums up the case for, and against structural separation: "If competition is foreclosed due to anti-competitive behaviour [by a non structurally separated entity] then the benefits of competition will be lost. Structural separation will protect the benefits of competition. The benefits from structural separation therefore are essentially the benefits of competition that would otherwise be foreclosed. However, there are potential costs of structural separation and proposing structural separation requires a careful consideration of the costs and benefits."
At which point there is a reference to a 2001 OECD report " OECD, "Recommendation of the Council concerning structural separation in regulated industries," but little consideration of these costs and benefits. It should more correctly have been titled: "The case for structural separation: a summary of the arguments."
David Bass
| ComOps, a leading Australian provider of business software products and services, has won a competitive tender to deploy its Salvus safety, r…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
