The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued its final decision announcing the removal of regulation of the existing Digital Data Access (DDAS) and ISDN service declarations in city areas.
This means the declaration of DDAS and ISDN services in CBD and metropolitan areas of capital cities will be removed by 30 June 2006, to provide a sufficient period for existing access seekers to migrate to alternative services in capital cities.
In relation to regional areas, however, the lack of competition for the provision of data services means that the existing declarations should remain in force for the foreseeable future – the ACCC is proposing to review the regional declarations in three years time.
"The decision reflects the ACCC's view that regulatory effort should focus on those areas which are least likely to be competitive and that regulation should be progressively withdrawn from those areas which can support sustainable competition", an ACCC Commissioner, Mr Ed Willett, said today.
The ACCC has applied this more focused form of regulation over a number of years. Examples include the recommended removal of retail price caps from the business market, the removal of local call regulation in CBD areas and the progressive removal of regulation on inter-capital transmission services and nominated capital-regional routes.
The ISDN is used for the carriage of information such as voice, data, high quality sound, text, still images and video over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The service was declared in 1998.
The DDAS is an access service for the domestic carriage of data. The service can combine the use of a customer access line with management to ensure high quality data transmission. The service was declared in 1997.
The ISDN and DDAS service declarations currently expire in June 2005 and, under the Trade Practices Act 1974, the ACCC is required to complete its review prior to this date.
Media inquiries
Mr Michael Cosgrave, Group General Manager, Communications Group, (03) 9290 1914or 0416 043 160
Part XIC of the Trade Practices Act 1974 establishes a regime for regulated access to carriage services and services which facilitate the supply of carriage services. Access obligations in relation to a particular service are established following the declaration of that service by the ACCC.
The ACCC's power to declare a service is contained in section 152AL of the Act. Under section 152AL, the ACCC can declare an eligible service once it has conducted a public inquiry according to Part 25 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 to determine whether declaration is in the long terms interest of end-users (LTIE).
Once a service is declared, the access provider must, upon request, make access available to service providers, taking all reasonable steps to ensure that technical and operational quality is equivalent to that which the access provider provides itself.
In December 2002, transitional provisions associated with the new Section 152ALA of the Act came into force. Under these new provisions, the ACCC was required to specify an expiry date for existing declarations within five years of their commencement. In May 2003 the ACCC outlined a timetable for the expiry of all existing declarations, and decided on an expiry date of June 2005 for the declarations relating to the DDAS and ISDN services. Section 152ALA of the Act also required the Commission to review each declaration within the year preceding its expiry date.
As a first step in the review process, the ACCC issued a discussion paper in September 2004 which sought comment on issues related to the scope of the declarations. In response to the Discussion Paper, the ACCC received 6 submissions from interested parties. In April 2005, the ACCC issued its draft views in respect to whether the DDAS and ISDN services should continue to be declared and, if so, in what form. The ACCC received four submissions commenting on the draft report. These have been reflected, where appropriate, in the final report reviewing the DDAS and ISDN declarations.
