ACCC assessment of NBN-Telstra service delivery agreements

On 30 November 2020, the ACCC discontinued its monitoring of potential advantage to Telstra in downstream markets from early access to NBN funded HFC lead-ins, and notified NBN Co and Telstra that it does not require them to provide further HFC-related reports.

These reports have provided important information about the migration of HFC services during the NBN rollout, and have enabled the ACCC to monitor potential competition issues arising from Telstra’s position as a service delivery partner of NBN Co providing network planning and contract management services during the rollout.

The key findings of this reporting were:

• Telstra’s use of NBN installed lead-ins remained at a low level that is consistent with it meeting business as usual demand and did not indicate Telstra attempting to migrate services to its HFC platform at scale ahead of premises becoming ready to connect to the NBN.
• The HFC rollout has reached the stage where there is little, if any, potential for Telstra to gain early access to NBN installed infrastructure to supply HFC services.
• The volume of Telstra HFC services has reduced significantly over the period of monitoring.

Having monitored the rollout, the ACCC is satisfied that the reporting is no longer required.

Background

In the ACCC’s assessment of the NBN-Telstra Service Delivery Agreements in September 2016, it identified potential competition issues arising from Telstra’s position as a service delivery partner of NBN Co during the migration of HFC services. This included Telstra’s potential to gain an unfair advantage in acquiring new NBN HFC services during the migration process.

Due to these concerns, the ACCC requested that Telstra and NBN Co provide regular reports about:

• the number of NBN HFC lead-ins installed and Telstra’s uptake of new NBN HFC services
• NBN HFC rollout regions, and
• Telstra’s HFC broadband and Foxtel services.