The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today announced it has completed its inquiry to set terms and conditions for the wholesale ADSL service and published a final access determination.
Retailers use ADSL to provide broadband services over Telstra’s copper network. The final access determination sets out the price and non-price terms for the wholesale ADSL service that will apply until 30 June 2014. Under the terms of the final access determination, wholesale ADSL prices will decrease by around 15 per cent compared to the commercial prices that were being charged, on average, prior to the regulation of the service in February 2012.
“The ACCC regulates wholesale ADSL services to help ensure consumers and businesses have a choice in the provision broadband services,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.
“The wholesale price set in the final access determination provides certainty to industry participants, which in turn benefits customers by promoting competition and allowing a range of broadband services to be offered over Telstra’s copper network.”
The ACCC has limited the application of the final access determination to Telstra but has not limited it to certain geographic regions. The final access determination retains Telstra’s existing points of interconnection for the wholesale ADSL service. A voice service will still need to be provided on a copper line where there is a wholesale ADSL service.
The final prices are lower than draft prices released by the ACCC in March. This is due to updated information received in the inquiry about use of the service. The ACCC determined these prices using the same cost-based approach.
The final access determination's terms and conditions apply if there is no commercial agreement between an access seeker and Telstra. The final access determination incorporates the interim access determination prices for the period prior to this determination (14 February 2012 until 28 May 2013).
The ACCC must commence a new final access determination inquiry later this year to review terms for a number of telecommunications services to set prices for the period beyond 2014. This inquiry will also review the wholesale ADSL final access determination so that access to Telstra’s network and prices are applied consistently over the coming years.
The ACCC has also commenced an inquiry into varying the building block model record keeping rule.
The wholesale ADSL final access determination and final decision are available on the ACCC site.
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Final final access determination prices |
Draft final access determination prices |
Interim access determination prices (also included in the final access determination) |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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29 May 2013 to 30 June 2014 |
|
1 July 2012 to 28 May 2013 |
14 February to 30 June 2012 |
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Monthly port charge per end-user in Zone 1 (predominantly CBD and metropolitan areas) |
$24.44 |
$24.56 |
$25.40 |
$25.40 |
|
Monthly port charge per end-user in Zone 2/3 (predominantly regional and rural areas) |
$29.66 |
$29.80 |
$30.80 |
$30.80 |
|
Monthly charge per Aggregating Virtual Circuit or Virtual LAN acquired in connection with wholesale ADSL |
$32.31 per Mbps |
$36.07 per Mbps |
$33.65 per Mbps |
$45.50 per Mbps |
*Port charge is a monthly per-user access charge. There are different port charges for Zone 1 (predominantly urban areas) and Zone 2/3 (predominantly rural/regional areas). Aggregating Virtual Circuit (AGVC) or Virtual LAN (VLAN) is a monthly charge for data aggregation/traffic (which provides network capacity in Megabits per second).