The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today issued a discussion paper seeking industry comment on a telecommunications transmission cost model developed by an independent expert consultant.
This model has been configured to estimate the costs of supplying transmission services between various capital–regional locations in Australia.
This model will assist the ACCC’s regulatory work, including informing its analysis of the likely costs of supplying transmission services in different regions of Australia, which are a critical input to the supply of broadband services to end-users. The ACCC also expects that the transmission cost model will assist commercial negotiations with respect to this service.
The transmission cost model (and accompanying discussion paper and user manual) which has been developed by Gibson Quai-AAS, is available on the ACCC website at www.accc.gov.au.
At this stage, the transmission cost model does not seek to estimate the costs of supplying transmission services between specific capital–regional locations. As part of the consultation process commencing today, the ACCC is first seeking industry comment whether the structure of the model reflects industry best practice, as well as feedback on various empirical issues. For this reason, the inputs which appear in the model are of an indicative nature only.
The ACCC invites interested parties to provide written submissions by 23 May 2007
Submissions can be addressed to Ms Nicole Hardy/Mr John Bahtsevanoglou, Communications Group, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, GPO Box 520, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001. In addition to a hard copy, parties making submissions are encouraged to provide an electronic copy of the submission to nicole.hardy@accc.gov.au or john.bahtsevanoglou@accc.gov.au.