Australia - Regulation of the telecommunications industry

Synopsis

Despite government legislation and regulatory rulings there are still a lot of outstanding issues that need to be addressed include: operational separation; a dedicated Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) telecoms commissioner; media and telecoms convergence; USOs; consumer protection issues; regional infrastructure; investment solutions and a formula for future-proofing. Also, issues such as convergence of telecoms and the media are crying out for changes to the aging regulatory policies. The ACCC has already indicated that it will be looking very seriously into the consequences of all these matters.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. The Australian Communications and Media Authority
• 3. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
  • 3.1 Issues with the regulatory system
  • 3.2 Competition notice for Telstra - the line rental issue
  • 3.3 The blatant misuse of self-regulation
  • 3.4 ACCC rejects Telstra's PSTN and LCS undertakings
  • 3.5 Competition notice revoked
  • 3.6 ACCC extends status quo on access regulation
• 4. The Telecommunications Act
• 5. Fixed line access networks
  • 5.1 Unbundled local copper loop (ULL)
  • 5.2 Fibre networks require regulatory rethink
• 6. Core networks
  • 6.1 Backhaul - ACCC Cost Model
• 7. Submarine telecommunications cables
• 8. Related reports

• Exhibit 2 - ACCC decisions July 2006