Telstra loses one of its few good calls

After a series of big fights with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in recent years, Telstra have now had one of the few rulings that were made in its favour overturned by the ACCC.

The previous decision by the ACCC for Telstra to be exempt from regulations that saw the enforcement of third party access to its fixed line broadband access on around half of the metropolitan fixed line services for the group has now been reversed by the Australian Competition Tribunal.

The limited exemption to obligation to supply local call services and line rental services in 387 of Australia’s metropolitan areas was granted in August by the ACCC. The recent tribunal, however, advised that it had rejected the limited exemptions from the ACCC requiring competitor access to be allowed by Telstra.

The proposal from the ACCC to scale the regulations enforcing this had been too soon, said the tribunal who ruled that the need for access to the Telstra network was an ongoing requirement. Graeme Samuel, the chairman of the ACCC said that it would accept the tribunal’s decision.

In a statement he said “The ACCC recognises that this decision was a matter of judgement and understands that there are reasons why the tribunal came to a different conclusion (to the ACCC’s). As with all court and tribunal decisions, the ACCC will review those reasons and consider the implications for the ongoing performance of its regulatory functions.”

The ACC said that in granting what it said were limited exemptions to Telstra it had considered “there were sufficient means by which competing telecommunications providers could supply voice services to consumers and that Telstra’s provision of these wholesale services were no longer an enduring bottleneck.”

In effect, the ACCC had moved too early said the tribunal, saying “It would normally be easier to revisit a decision at a later date and subsequently withdraw regulation, than it would be to re-regulate after a market had been divested of some or all its regulatory constraints.”