Shared network court battle between Hutchison and Telstra
Following arguments regarding their shared mobile network, broadband providers Telstra and Hutchisons 3 have now met in court to fight out the terms and conditions of their agreement for sharing of the network.
A battle in the Australian Supreme Court began recently over the shared mobile network agreement made between Telstra and Hutchison’s 3.
A spokesperson for 3 said “An issue has arisen between [Hutchison] and Telstra regarding our shared network.”
The spokesperson went on to say that a number of terms and conditions of their shared network had been the main problem, which had led to a difference in opinion, and the two companies had simply gone to court in order to seek clarification. In order to share a 2100MHz metropolitan network an agreement had been signed back in 2004 between 3 and Telstra.
In order for the carriers network to become the joint ventures core asset Telstra paid $450 million to Hutchison. The expiry of the spectrum licence in 2017 or even later was to have been the date the sharing agreement was supposed to run until. The situation has, however been made more complicated by the recent decision between Hutchison and Vodafone to merge their Australian operations.
On several occasions it has been said that the sharing agreement between Hutchison and Telstra would continue, and so would the agreement between Optus and Vodafone, according to Nigel Dews, the CEO of 3, who has been set to head the entity once merged.
The action would not impact the completion of the merger with Vodafone nor did it mean that the Telstra agreement was coming to an end, according to the spokesperson for 3.
The spokesperson said “The matter is currently before the courts and it is not appropriate for us to comment further pending its resolution.”
Following a statement issued by the ACCC outlining the concerns it had over this merger, which included the fear of a drop in the levels of competition, it would appear that the merger may also face opposition from other quarters.
