The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission plans to stop regulating the wholesale mobile originating access service after 30 June 2004, according to a preliminary decision issued today.
Regulation of the mobile originating access service is currently limited to the small sub-group of telephone calls made from mobile phones to 13/1300 and 1800 numbers. The direct impact of the decision is therefore limited to network owners involved in delivering these calls.
ACCC Commissioner, Mr Ed Willett, said the decision was part of a wide-ranging ACCC review of the regulation of mobile telephone services in Australia.
"The aim of the ACCC's review of mobile phone services is to ensure regulation will promote the long-term interests of end-users of telecommunications services", he said. "In the case of the mobile originating access service, no party has provided substantial evidence to suggest ongoing regulation is required to achieve this outcome.
"While individual carriers appear to have control over access to calls originating on their network, we have seen little if any evidence of them taking advantage of this control to either deny access to their network altogether, or to set excessively high charges for access. This finding is supported by the fact that the ACCC hasn't been notified of any disputes in relation to access to the mobile originating service since 1999.
"Further, none of the submissions received by the ACCC in the course of this inquiry identified a situation where a carrier failed to provide access on reasonable terms".
The ACCC is seeking submissions on its draft decision from interested parties by close of business, on Wednesday 9 June 2004.
"The ACCC encourages all interested parties to take advantage of this opportunity and will not reach its final decision until it has fully considered all of these submissions", he said.
Following consideration of all submissions, the ACCC expects to issue its final decision in late-June 2004.