Archive for May 2017
Following its call for submissions, a “special” letter from Minister Fifield and their own deliberations the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ACCC has tentatively decided not to declare a wholesale domestic mobile roaming service. This is the ACCC’s third consideration of the subject.
The views submitted to the ACCC accessed HERE were predictable and largely followed the financial interests of the authors. Telstra, and to a lesser extent Optus, having spent a lot of money in remote areas building both 3G and 4G coverage had most to lose and argued against the declaration.
Arguing in favour was Vodafone which has focussed its capital and marketing in urban areas had much to gain. It is interesting that when the same issue was raised in the UK all operators were opposed to it including Vodafone who’s spokesperson at the time said “National roaming will not provide the people of the UK with better quality voice and mobile internet coverage,” – perhaps he should seek a job with Telstra.
TPG, which is setting about building a new network concentrating coverage only in built up areas, would have benefited the most from gaining regulated access to and additional 2.4M square KM of coverage. TPG argued for declaration.
The groups representing the communications interests of country communities almost universally put the same view as Telstra’s CEO Andy Penn claiming that Telstra’s incentive to invest in rural areas would be greatly reduced or removed altogether if they were forced to carry their competitors along.
So the submission were predictable leaving the ACCC in the “the dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t” position which ACCC Chairman Rod Simms covered in the words “the effect declaration would have on competition in regional, rural and remote areas is uncertain. While declaration may deliver choice for more consumers, declaration has the potential to make some consumers worse off,” and “The ACCC has examined the incentives for mobile network operators to upgrade their networks or invest in expanding coverage both with and without declaration. We heard from many regional groups concerned about coverage. We consider there is evidence that declaration could damage some incentives for operators to invest such that overall coverage is not likely to improve with declaration,”