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Telecommunications is a lot like some Wagner operas … there’s a lot of space between the good bits.

Nowhere is this more so in the industry than in the contentious field of linking all Australians to the rush of broadband services and content waiting in the wings.

This year’s Bandwidth Inquiry report highlighted the situation … there’s lots of bandwidth between Australia’s capital cities and some larger regional metropoli. Anywhere else, the shortage is extreme – so much so that the end users in tens of thousands of small to medium sized businesses and domestic users are wondering what they did to offend the bandwidth genie.

Only a small part of the population lives in any proximity to the hybrid fibre/coax cable networks established by Optus and Telstra. It appeared these select few would be the only ones guaranteed satisfactory delivery of broadband services like high speed Internet, video on demand and video conferencing. That’s not to mention being able to move massive amounts of information without computers choking as they download to the public switched telephone network bottleneck.

This is where the ACCC’s action in declaring the Customer Access Network (CAN) is so significant.

Declaration compels the landlord of the network, Telstra, to allow other carriers open access to what is also known as the Unconditioned Local Loop … the link between handsets and the main distribution frame in telephone exchanges.

Unconditioned because it is simply a twisted pair of copper wires running between two pieces of equipment, the slave of whatever enhancements may be installed at either end.

This freeing up of the most valuable communications link in the country has been paralleled by the development of digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies that can deliver broadband services via the ULL.

Successful delivery depends on several developments.

The Australian Communications Industry Forum is working up standards and codes of practice to which providers must adhere if they are to access the Telstra CAN. These are expected to be finalised possibly by as early as next month.

ATUG has expressed its concern over another element of the process, where Telstra has yet to publish terms and conditions for access to the local loop and set a price on that access. At this stage, it looks as if the amount will be calculated based on an internal cost analysis, despite extensive work over more than 18 months by the ACCC’s independent analysts, NERA.

Country-city discrimination must stop
There needs to be a separate assessment of Telstra’s claims – particularly the cost of establishing back office support services for the new arrangement as well as the actual capital-specific aspects of the service.

It’s understood that Telstra also proposes a set of geographically de-averaged prices that will slug country people well over twice the rate of those in metropolitan areas.

Then there’s the suggestion that four pricing bands be introduced to reflect increasing remoteness. Economic rationalists and centralists might rejoice at the concept but why can’t Telstra adopt the concept of extended local call cells that is winning hearts and minds around Australia.

Certainly, if any pricing equations are based on population, density should be the only factor considered.

One thing is certain. Telstra’s new Country Wide service headed by Doug Campbell is on a hiding to nothing if any of this gets up … killed off before it kicks its first goal.

Interest centres round not so much when Telstra unveils its access pricing policy but later, when it introduces its own broadband products which, it says, it will deliver to 90% of its own customer base within two years.

Will the Corporation apply the same pricing structures to its own products as it plans for its competitors once they gain access to the Customer Access Network? If the answer is no, it’ll be torrid times for Telstra – not only in the cities but in the country as well.

Unfortunately, it will lead to another round of litigation … and delays to the introduction of broadband services – which all Australians should regard as their right.

Allan Horsley
Managing Director