The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today directed Telstra to improve two measures that will support the migration of customers onto the National Broadband Network (NBN).
These measures relate to a specific process that will be used by NBN Co in limited circumstances to connect premises to the NBN. In some cases, NBN Co may need to use an existing copper or HFC line to pull the NBN fibre through the conduit that leads from the street to the premises to connect that premise to the NBN.
This process is known as the ‘pull through’ process. The pull through process will result in a temporary outage to the existing communications services.
The processes are referred to in Telstra’s Migration Plan as Required Measures and relate to the way that Telstra will:
- collect the consent of its wholesale customers for NBN Co to pull through lines over which the wholesale customer is providing services.
- notify wholesale customers if the pull through process is not successful.
These processes affect the ability of Telstra’s wholesale customers to minimise disruption to the supply of communication services to consumers.
“The successful migration of services to the NBN will also require the involvement and cooperation of all retail service providers and NBN Co,” ACCC Commissioner Ed Willett said.
“The ACCC issued this direction as it considers that Telstra’s proposed processes would not provide appropriate protections to consumers and competition during migration.”
Telstra must now amend the processes to address the ACCC’s concerns and resubmit them within 40 business days.
In December 2012, the ACCC released a discussion paper seeking feedback from interested parties on Telstra’s draft measures. The ACCC has considered responses to the discussion paper in assessing whether Telstra’s draft measures comply with the principles outlined in the Telecommunications (Migration Plan Principles) Determination 2011.
A decision paper setting out the ACCC’s concerns, the Direction and submissions to the December discussion paper are available at Telstra's migration plan required measures - Draft required measures 1(a) and 1(b).