The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued its report for the quarter ending 31 March 2008 under the enhanced accounting separation regime for Telstra.
The report tests whether there is systematic discrimination in the price or non-price terms offered to Telstra's retail and wholesale customers, and so provides general guidance on the potential for competing service providers to supply consumers. It is not intended to detect all forms of potentially anti-competitive conduct.
Amongst other findings, the report notes that in the March 2008 quarter:
- imputed margins generally remained steady, with only margins on fixed-to-mobile service declining significantly
- wholesale residential customers received inferior service for those basic access connections that require work at the customer premises
- wholesale customer otherwise generally received as good or better service than retail customers.
Telstra has reported inferior wholesale service levels for the connection of basic services in prior quarters, but not to the extent of that reported for the current quarter. Telstra has advised that extreme weather conditions caused the reduction in service quality for wholesale customers observed in the quarter, as technicians were redeployed to restore services in affected areas.
"The ACCC has written to Telstra to express concern that its response to weather events can more severely affect the quality of wholesale services," ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today. "We have requested Telstra to inquire into the steps that it can take to isolate all the factors that have led to this result, and to take appropriate steps to ensure equivalent levels of service are supplied in future."
The report will be available on the ACCC website.