Australia - Telecoms Industry - Wholesale Market

Synopsis

The $4 billion Australian telecommunications wholesale market has been largely concentrated on broadband services available through unbundled local loops (ULL) and naked DSL and line-sharing facilities in particular have created significant new competition in the market since 2008. This regime is still in place and continues to drive the current level of competition. Mobile wholesale has also been relaxed – the margins available are rather slim but the combination of the smartphone, tablets and other new equipment is also making this market more attractive.

The reality, however, is that the future will be moving towards the national broadband network. This will create a more level playing field, but it is estimated that margins will come further under pressure and, as size does matter in this market, this will lead to further industry consolidation.

Despite improved market developments the industry remains concerned about the dominance of Telstra in the market, both in relation to the transitional period and to the new NBN environment. However under the current industry conditions regulatory progress is occurring much more quickly than it ever has in the past.

Developments in the digital economy and the trans-sector use of infrastructure will see an ongoing increase in wholesale revenues, as more and more new content and service providers begin to participate in this market. Furthermore, the Internet of Things (IoT) will extend the reach of the infrastructure to literally billions of new sensors, devices and other ‘things’ that will be added, opening up new opportunities in cloud computing, data centres, data analytics and so on.

Key developments:

National broadband network, regulation, regulatory instruments, structural separation, wholesale, retail, POI, Bitstream, unbundled local loop (ULL), line-sharing, naked DSL, peering, cloud computing, data centres, Internet of Things, (IoT), CVC, Pay TV, multicast; wholesale revenue data for operators to FY2014.

Companied covered in this report include:

NBN Co, Telstra, Optus, AAPT, Internode, Nextgen, Pipe Networks.