Synopsis

The Australian telecoms market currently operates in a two-tiered fashion. By far the greatest attention of politicians and the media is focused on the national broadband market. Despite election promises, progress has been – as predicted by BuddeComm – slow. The specific analyses of the NBN are covered in a separate report.

The real market action in 2014 is again taking place in the mobile broadband market. Telstra has further strengthened its position as the clear leader. However, Optus and Vodafone – whose networks are now also ready for competition – have indicated that they will challenge Telstra and a price war is set to be unleashed in the mobile broadband market with all three players battling it out over their new 4G LTE infrastructure. Unless the two challengers are successful there is the looming threat of monopolistic tendencies in this market.

In the meantime, in many sectors the NBN is no longer the story. Instead it has created other, new stories in the various sections of our society and our economy, many of which are highlighted in this report.