Final decision28 Mar 2014
On 28 March 2014, the ACCC concluded its inquiry into the review of the declaration for the Domestic Transmission Capacity Service (DTCS) and released a final report on the findings of its inquiry. The ACCC has decided to extend and vary the declaration for the DTCS for a further five years until 31 March 2019.
Report on the final decision
The ACCC has undertaken an assessment of competition on all DTCS routes (including both deregulated and regulated routes) using a revised methodology. The results of the competition assessment have found that an additional 112 metropolitan Exchange Serving Areas (ESAs) and 8 regional routes are sufficiently competitive and should be removed from regulation. Three regional routes that are currently deregulated have failed to meet the revised competition assessment and will be re-regulated.
The ACCC has decided that a transitional period of 9 months will apply before the changes to the scope of regulation take effect. That is, from 1 January 2015, the additional 112 metropolitan ESAs and 8 regional routes found to be competitive will be removed from regulation. From this date, the three regional routes which failed to meet the revised competition methodology will also be re-declared.
The ACCC has also consulted widely on the service description for the DTCS throughout the inquiry. The ACCC has decided to vary the DTCS service description to reflect the ACCC’s competition assessment and to improve it general clarity.