The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released its sixth quarterly National Broadband Network Wholesale Market Indicators Report for the period ending 30 June 2017.
“The market indicators report is a key tool that provides transparency on the level of competition developing over the NBN,” ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.
The report reveals that there are now at least five access seeker groups acquiring wholesale services directly from NBN Co at 118 points of interconnection (POI) and six access seeker groups at 89 of the 121 POIs. This has been a significant increase as smaller providers connect directly with NBN Co at the POI.
“As smaller operators achieve sufficient scale to directly connect with the NBN at a large number of POIs, they can better control the amount of CVC they allocate to their customers. This improves service levels for end-users and increases the competitiveness of the market,” Mr Sims said.
“There are now over 20 access seekers directly connected to NBN Co’s network compared with 14 access seekers when the first report was produced in 2015.”
The average CVC capacity acquired per user has increased by almost 10 per cent during the quarter.
“CVC is an important component of how retailers provide enough capacity to deliver the speed of services they have sold to their customers, particularly during peak periods. The ACCC Broadband Performance Monitoring and Reporting program will be monitoring whether consumers are receiving the speeds they have paid for,” Mr Sims said.
The ACCC is currently consulting with industry about whether further information relating to the amount of CVC capacity acquired and the utilisation of that capacity by each access seeker group should be reported by NBN Co.
“The ACCC considers that further information in relation to CVC utilisation rates would assist the ACCC to monitor the development of competition over the NBN and enable it to perform its regulatory functions,” Mr Sims said.
Key points from the June report
- NBN Co was supplying a total of 2,511,392 broadband wholesale access services, an increase of 440,269 since the last reporting period. This represents a 21 per cent increase on the March quarter.
- The total amount of Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC) capacity acquired by access seekers increased to 2,820 gigabits per second (Gbps), up 36 per cent from the 2,149 Gbps last quarter.
- The average CVC capacity acquired per user has increased by almost 10 per cent during the quarter. This includes an average increase for each broadband service from around one Mbps to 1.09 Mbps.
- The most popular speed tier continues to be 25/5 Mbps.
- FTTN and HFC wholesale access services continue to increase as a proportion of overall access services
- the number of services connected via FTTN has increased from 102,293 to 906,662 over the last 12 months
- the number of services connected via HFC increased from 14,551 to 153,371 over the last 6 months
- Competitors to Telstra in regional areas are consistently maintaining higher market shares compared to traditional broadband services.
View the full report at NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report.
Notes to editors
This is the ACCC’s sixth quarterly Wholesale Market Indicators Report. The report details the number of wholesale access services acquired over the NBN, subject to regulation under Part XIC of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.
The report covers the number of NBN services in operation by access technology, such as FTTP, FTTB, FTTN, HFC, fixed wireless, and satellite. It also covers these services by geographic region, speed tier, and the split between voice (traffic class 1), business (traffic class 2), and residential broadband (traffic class 4).
An NBN wholesale access service is used by an NBN access seeker to supply a retail service directly to its own customers or, alternatively, to supply a wholesale service to another retail service provider. Some retail service providers choose to only resell NBN services acquired from other NBN access seekers. Those services are not separately identified in this report.
The report also includes data on the contracted CVC capacity on the NBN – that is, the aggregate contracted capacity across all NBN connectivity virtual circuits – and the number of NBN Access Seekers at NBN points of interconnection.
The ACCC is also consulting on whether to extend or extend and vary the National
Broadband Network Services in Operation record keeping rules before it expires on 30 September 2017.