The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today announced it is holding a public inquiry to review six fixed-line telecommunications service declarations, in accordance with its obligations under the Trade Practices Act 1974. The declarations are due to expire 31 July 2009.
The public inquiry is to determine whether the declarations should be remade, extended, revoked, varied or allowed to expire. Under the Act, the ACCC is required to hold an inquiry into the declarations in the 12 months prior to their expiry.
A discussion paper was issued today which identifies issues relevant to the review and seeks comments on particular matters identified by the ACCC. The discussion paper seeks submissions on a number of matters including whether the ACCC should extend the existing declarations for 12 months to 31 July 2010.
The ACCC considers that a 12 month extension would allow sufficient time for consideration of implications arising out of the Federal Government's National Broadband Network process. The proposed extension does not imply any particular views or insight regarding the conclusion of the NBN process.
To assist its decision, the ACCC is seeking submissions on its discussion paper from stakeholders and interested parties by 5 pm, 13 March 2009. The ACCC will issue a final report after receiving and considering submissions.
The six fixed-line services to be considered in the combined inquiry are:
- the unconditioned local loop service (ULLS)
- line sharing service (LSS)
- public switched telephone network originating and terminating access
(PSTN OTA) - local carriage service (LCS)
- and wholesale line rental (WLR).
In various combinations, these fixed-line services allow access seekers to use Telstra's existing network facilities to provide voice and broadband services to retail customers.
The ACCC has recently issued exemptions to Telstra from Standard Access Obligations for PSTN OA, LCS and WLR and the effects of these will take some time to emerge. These exemptions will commence during the second half of 2009 – subject to Australian Competition Tribunal outcomes.* The exemptions have important conditions and limitations attached to them which are dependent on the existence of underlying declarations for each of the services. The exemptions as drafted would continue to operate in the event that the ACCC extends the expiry date of the relevant current declarations. If the current declarations are varied, revoked or allowed to lapse, the exemptions would cease to have any effect.
A copy of the discussion paper will be available on the ACCC website.
For media inquiries to the ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, or Mr Michael Cosgrave, Executive General Manager, Communications Group, please call Ms Lin Enright, ACCC Media, on (02) 6243 1108 or 0414 613 520. For general inquiries, please call the Infocentre: 1300 302 502.
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