Telstra's Migration Plan

On 20 December 2018, Telstra provided the ACCC with a letter of notice on its proposal to replace Required Measure 5(B) of Telstra’s Migration Plan and its intent to publish.

Required Measure 5(B) details the managed disconnection process for the Special Services Inputs Telstra will use for CustomNet. CustomNet is a business communication service that provides advanced call handling features and in particular is used by a number of emergency services.

Special Services (and Special Service Inputs) are generally business services delivered over Telstra’s copper network for which a replacement product was not initially available over the National Broadband Network (NBN). For this reason, Special Services are disconnected during the course of the NBN rollout on a different timetable to the ‘region by region’ disconnection process used for the standard voice and broadband services.

Currently, the disconnection arrangements in Required Measure 5(B) provide for a national product exit for all CustomNet services on 15 April 2019. However Telstra is concerned that there still remain a number of active legacy CustomNet services on Telstra’s network and is proposing amendments to the current disconnection arrangements in order to minimise the risk of disruption to the supply of services to legacy CustomNet end-users.

These amendments include a revised final national product exit date on 31 January 2020, approximately 9 months later than the current national product exit date.

Telstra has consulted with its wholesale customers on its proposed amendments to Required Measure 5(B) and advised that it has not received any concerns from them. NBN Co requested some minor changes to ensure consistency with other areas of the Migration Plan and these changes are now reflected in the proposed changes to Required Measure 5(B) that Telstra intends to publish.

The ACCC is not required to approve amendments to Required Measure 5(B), but may object if it does not comply with the Migration Plan Principles in which case they don't come into effect. The ACCC considers that the amended Required Measure 5(B) is consistent with the Migration Plan Principles and does not object to it.

Telstra intends to publish these Required Measures on 24 January 2019. Once published, these Required Measures will form part of the Migration Plan.