The Competitive Carriers' Coalition has fired another salvo at Telstra's plans for structural separation, branding Telstra's proposal for rebates if its wholesale services fail to meet specified performance levels as "[failing] to meet even the basic criteria which would be expected of a standard, commercially negotiated arrangement."

The prospects for the ACCC accepting Telstra's structural separation undertaking - a prerequisite to Telstra participation in the NBN - are receding rapidly with Telstra's competitors making a highly critical submission to the ACCC's review of the undertaking.

Telstra has submitted its Structural Separation Undertaking (SSU) and Draft Migration Plan to the ACCC, which will shortly make the documents publicly available.

COMMENT - New communications minister Malcolm Turnbull may have got more than the pro-NBN faction in the Australian telecoms industry offside by suggesting that the access regime under which Telstra has operated since 1997 is working.

Telstra's competitors are angry at the ACCC's decision to maintain the status quo on regulated prices for access to key Telstra wholesale services, claiming that the ACCC has reneged on long-promised reforms that would have seen prices come down significantly.

Competitive carriers have turned up the pressure on Senators not to delay the passage of Government's telecommunications reforms, releasing survey results that they say demonstrate support for the measures among regional Australians.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy expects the complex negotiations with Telstra over its regulatory future to be complete by the beginning of December, and says enough preparatory work has already been done to make that deadline realistic.

The Competitive Carriers Coalition has seized on a statement from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom about a surge in broadband delivered over unbundled local loop services to renew its calls for structural separation of Telstra.

A senior Telstra executive has branded ACCC action against the company as "a complete waste of court time and taxpayer money."

An organisation representing a range of Australian carriers and ISPs has railed against Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo's "unsolicited advice" to the incoming Barack Obama administration that it should put part of an economic stimulus package towards improving fixed and wireless broadband in the US.