The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has today finalised the wholesale asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) service declaration decision, by continuing to regulate the wholesale ADSL service for a further five years.
The ACCC considers that declaring the wholesale ADSL service on a national basis will promote the long-term interests of customers during the transition to the NBN.
“Continued access to wholesale ADSL services remains in the transition to the NBN and is critical to enable retail providers to compete with the dominant provider, Telstra, in the supply of high speed broadband services nationally,” ACCC Commissioner Cristina Cifuentes said.
“Declaring the ADSL service will lead to a more competitive retail sector which is likely to deliver greater choices for end users in the form of better prices, service quality and service options.”
“In making this decision, the ACCC considered submissions from industry and found a general consensus in favour of the ACCC approach.”
The ACCC's final report is available on the ACCC website: Wholesale ADSL service declaration inquiry 2016
Background information
The wholesale ADSL service is a point-to-point service which enables retail service providers to deliver high speed fixed-line broadband internet services to their customers, using another network provider’s equipment. The wholesale ADSL service was first declared in February 2012.
Once a service is declared, a network owner must provide access to the service upon request and where commercial agreement cannot be reached, regulated price and non-price terms determined by the ACCC will apply.
As the ACCC has declared the wholesale ADSL service with the same service description, the current wholesale ADSL final access determination will remain in place until it expires on 30 June 2019.