Australia - Telecoms Industry - Wholesale Market - 2009-2010

Synopsis

Wholesale continues to be a problem area for the industry; if anything the developments in late 2009 have been a further set back for an already struggling industry. Margins are often extremely thin and Telstra can ruin the viability of the industry with the stroke of a pen. The ACCC has been very active in investigating this field, but they obviously didn’t feel strong enough to instigate the important foreshadowed changes. A major set back for the industry was Telstra’s decision under its previous CEO to clamp down on wholesale, this led to a sharp decline of this market, which still continued in 2009. While changes to the regime will occur in 2010 it highly unlikely that this will lead to an immediate improvement of this market. Perhaps by 2011, this situation might finally reverse again. Important to watch in 2010 are the regulatory changes to the legislation in relation to the structural separation of Telstra and the wholesale business model that will be developed by NBN Co.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
• 2. Wholesale market moving into 2010
  • 2.1 The national Broadband Network (separate reports)
• 3. Analysis of the Wholesale market
  • 3.1 Declining market
  • 3.2 No incentive for Telstra to improve conditions
  • 3.3 Wholesale customers looking for alternatives
  • 3.4 Wholesale remains one of the key growth markets
  • 3.5 Robust regime based on previous experiences
• 4. Industry and Regulatory developments
  • 4.1 Regional backbone project awarded to Nextgen
  • 4.2 Structural Separation of Telstra
  • 4.3 Vocus Communications
• 5. Wholesale revenues in Australia
• 6. Wholesale margins
• 7. Internet peering
• 8. Key wholesale services
  • 8.1 Unconditioned Local Loop Services (ULLS)
  • 8.2 Line sharing or spectrum sharing
  • 8.3 Local Carriage Service (LCS)
  • 8.4 Unbundled Bitstream (UBS)
  • 8.5 UBS versus ULL
  • 8.6 Naked DSL
• 9. Related reports

• Table 1 – Wholesale market revenues by major supplier – 1997 - 2011
• Table 2 – Wholesale market revenues by major supplier – annual change – 1998 – 2011
• Table 3 –Wholesale margins by product - 2005, 2007 – 2008,2009
• Table 4 – Wholesale margins by industry group – 2002; 2004; 2006; 2008, 2009
• Table 5 – Wholesale margins by industry group – 1996 - 2000 (historical)