ACCC issues transmission capacity service discussion paper

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today announced that it would hold a public inquiry reviewing the transmission capacity service declaration.

To begin, a discussion paper is being issued which identifies issues relevant to the review and which seeks comments on particular aspects of transmission markets.

The purpose of the public inquiry is to determine whether the declaration of the transmission capacity service should be maintained, varied or revoked by the ACCC. 

Transmission capacity is a generic service used for the carriage of voice, data or other communications. Currently, the ACCC regulates access to regional to capital, intra-regional, metropolitan and CBD transmission services.  Intercapital transmission routes were removed from the declaration in 2001. This followed an earlier variation in 1998 which had included the Melbourne-Adelaide, Adelaide-Perth and Sydney-Brisbane intercapital routes in the declaration.

This transmission capacity service declaration expires in March 2004 and under the Trade Practices Act 1974 the ACCC is required to complete its review prior to this date.

To assist its decision, the ACCC is seeking submissions on its discussion paper from stakeholders and interested parties by 26 September 2003.  Depending on the information received in the submissions, the ACCC expects to issue a draft report setting out its preliminary findings by the end of November 2003.

BACKGROUND

The ACCC is required to conduct this review pursuant to the newly introduced section 152ALA of the Act.  Under Section 152ALA, the ACCC is required to specify expiry dates for existing declarations within five years of their commencement and complete a review of all declarations prior to their expiry dates.  The review is to be conducted pursuant to Part 25 of the Telecommunications Act 1997.

In May 2003 the ACCC decided on an expiry date of March 2004 for the declaration of the transmission capacity service. 
The transmission capacity service was deemed to be declared in 1997.  Variations to this declaration were made in 1998 and 2001 which included and then excluded respectively, the intercapital routes Melbourne-Adelaide, Adelaide-Perth and Sydney-Brisbane.

The first step in the declaration review process is for the ACCC to release a discussion paper seeking industry views on the existing service declaration.  This will assist the ACCC to determine, in a preliminary sense, whether maintaining, varying or revoking would be in the long term interests of end-users.  The ACCC anticipates that it will release a draft report, containing its preliminary findings, by the end of November 2003.  Prior to this report being finalised stakeholders will have an opportunity to comment on the preliminary findings.