ISPs furious about Telstras ACT exchange upgrades

Telstras plans to close a sub-exchange in Deakin, a suburb of Canberra, which will cause disruption in the provision of ULL and LSS based ADSL services by a number of ISPs, has caused a huge row between Telstra and ISPs Internode and iiNet.

The ISPs were written to be Telstra to advise of its plans to install a RIM in Deakin according to a recent report. By connecting this by fibre cabling to the exchange in Deakin it would prevent the delivery of ULLS or LSS based ADSL services that were currently offered over copper wire from the exchange by other ISPs.

The executive director of the Competitive Carriers Coalition, David Forman branded this latest move by Telstra as “yet another warning about the company’s true motive: to continue to bully competitors and stifle broadband competition in Australia.”

He went on to claim that “The ISPs impacted by this move have been complaining to the ACCC about the potential for this to happen for years yet it has taken no decisive action to stop it… Now that it has an anti-competitive situation on its hands, the ACCC needs to immediately intervene and resolve this situation.”

The move, however, had been forced upon the telco because one of Deakins’ sub-exchanges was going to be demolished said Telstra.

Martin Barr, a spokesman for Telstra said “Telstra has to move its sub-exchange from leased premises in the basement of the Alexander building in the suburb of Philip because the lease has expired on the building and it is being demolished…The sub-exchange is moving to a new site in the MLC building in Keltie Street, Phillip and we are taking the opportunity to upgrade the network to make ADSL2+ available to all end users in the exchange area.”

The Deakin exchange feed the copper wire to the current exchange, although the new exchange will use fibre cabling to connect. Six wholesale customers would be affected by the upgrade, which accounted for 24 LSS services and 18 ULL services said Barr.

The provision of these services would continue but because there would be no rack space for housing in the new MLC exchange arrangements would have to be made to house their DSLAMs outside of the exchange.

He said “However, because there are such a small number of services involved it may mean that it isn’t economic for them to do so.”