Primus smells costly ADSL hell for consumers if ADSL2+ not 'declared'

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 07 February 2008 07:28

Opinion and Analysis

Now that Telstra has finally decided to switch on ADSL2+ inside over 900 telephone exchanges around Australia, Telstra’s competitors are asking for wholesale access to the network – despite Telstra yesterday claiming the Government was not going to let this happen.

A groundswell of angst has begun to rise up from Telstra’s competitors since the ADSL2+  announcement, worried that wholesale access to the faster ADSL2+ equipment won’t be ‘declared’ by the ACCC – an organisation that Telstra is not friends with, and specifically neglected mentioning whatsoever in their ADSL2+ press release.

The first competitor to move was Primus Telecom, who have written to the ACCC “seeking declaration of Telstra ADSL2+ service”, with Primus CEO Ravi Bhatia saying that: “Primus has been one of the leading providers of broadband and ADSL2+ services in Australia for many years, and we are pleased to see Telstra finally come out of the closet.” 

Bhatia continued that: “Primus wants to continue to invest in and expand its own highly successful high speed broadband offerings across the country. That approach is our first choice but Telstra has denied us access to many key exchanges.  In many cases Primus and other competitors have been queuing more than eight months to get into exchanges to deploy broadband equipment.” 

Now that Telstra has made the decision to switch on ADSL2+ at last, albeit in some cases over an up-to 200 day timeframe, Bhatia is concerned that Telstra will look after itself first, riding roughshod over competitors who have been (im)patiently waiting to get access to install their own ADSL2+ equipment.

Bhatia said that: “You can be assured that Telstra will jump these queues to install its own DSL equipment in whatever exchanges it so chooses. Telstra should be required to offer ADSL2+ as a wholesale product in those exchange areas where competitors have been denied access to install their own broadband network.”

Of course, Bhatia realises that hundreds of new exchanges set up to offer ADSL2+ is a great thing for consumers, he just wants it to be a great thing for Telstra’s competitors, too, saying that: “Declaration of the high speed broadband service would be good news for competition and great news for those broadband users that do not currently receive competing high speed broadband offers [and that] declaration can only be a good outcome for consumers”.

Primus says that declaration of the ADSL2+ service by the ACCC would essentially mandate that Telstra must permit other telecommunications companies to provide the service to its customers, and say they have “legal advice supporting a decision by the ACCC to declare the service”.     

Primus says that Telstra has been misleading in its claims of Government guarantees - please read onto page 2 to continue...