Final determinations in telecommunications access disputes
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today published final determinations for four access disputes relating to the Mobile Terminating Access Service.*
The decisions were made on 20 December 2007 and were published following a compulsory legislative consultation period on publication.
The disputes relate to the charges payable for carrying the portion of a call which terminates on Optus's and Telstra's mobile networks. The final determinations set out the charges to be paid by Telstra and Optus to each other for the supply of the MTAS in 2007.
The period for these final determinations spans both the expired MTAS Pricing Principles which are relevant for the period 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2007 and the recently released MTAS Pricing Principles Determination for the period 1 July 2007 to 31 December 2008. These are the first final determinations to apply the MTAS Pricing Principles Determination for the period 1 July 2007 to 31 December 2008.
The terms of the final determinations include a price for the MTAS of 12 cents per minute from 1 January 2007 to 30 June 2007 and a price of 9 cpm from 1 July 2007 to 31 December 2007.
The decisions in these access disputes only have effect between Telstra and Optus.
The final determinations and supporting statements of reasons will be available on the ACCC's website.
* The Domestic Mobile Terminating Access Service is a wholesale input, used by providers of fixed-to-mobile and mobile-to-mobile calls, to allow their customers to call mobile phone users. It allows consumers (either fixed-line or mobile) to call mobile users connected to another network. The carrier whose customer initiates the call pays the carrier whose customer receives the call for the mobile terminating access service.
The ACCC is vested with arbitration powers enabling it to make directions and 'do all things necessary for the speedy hearing and determination of an access dispute'. For the ACCC to engage in an arbitration, an access seeker and/or an access provider must notify the ACCC of an access dispute. The ACCC may arbitrate an access dispute only where:
a declared service is supplied or proposed to be supplied by a carrier or carriage service provider
one or more standard access obligations apply or will apply to the carrier or carriage provider in relation to the declared service, and
an access seeker is unable to agree with the carrier or carriage service provider regarding the terms and conditions on which the carrier or the carriage service provider is to comply with the standard access obligations.
Where a dispute cannot be resolved after private negotiations, mediation and/or conciliation, either of the access parties may refer the matter to the ACCC. Arbitration by the ACCC would be considered as a final resolution for the parties in dispute. Where the ACCC is notified of an access dispute the ACCC must determine the matter, unless it decides to terminate the arbitration or the notification is otherwise withdrawn.
