Group Managing Director of Telstra Wholesale, Ms Kate McKenzie, said Telstra had today submitted to the Federal Government the regulatory framework that is needed to give Australia the open access, high-speed national broadband network (NBN) that is needed to keep up with the rest of the world, within the earliest timeframes.
Ms McKenzie said robust and forward-thinking regulatory change needed to occur for Australia to reap the benefits of a truly national broadband network – including improved and innovative access to education, health care, information and entertainment services for
consumers, and improved productivity for businesses.
In a podcast interview with nowwearetalking Chief Editor, Jeremy Mitchell, Telstra's head of Regulatory Dr Tony Warren says there needs to be regulatory certainty if the NBN is to work both for the successful bidder and those who will ultimately be wholesale customers.
“Building the NBN is an enormous task – the biggest infrastructure build ever undertaken in Australia – bigger than the Snowy Mountains scheme. It will require billions of dollars of investment, more than 50,000 nodes and the rollout of more than 100 thousand kilometres of new fibre,” Ms McKenzie said.
“Telstra stands ready to build it. We have the technology, the know-how, the expertise, the resources and the track record of getting things done, but the Government needs to bed down the regulatory changes needed to attract the investment. Without decisiveness, there is a real risk this thing won’t happen.
“If this network is going to be built, the builder needs up-front certainty that its investment will not be undermined or given away by regulatory changes once a decision to invest is made.”
Legislation is needed to lock in an agreement on the terms of core wholesale access to the NBN to provide certainty for investors and wholesale customers and attract the multi-billion dollar investment required.
Ms McKenzie also said that Telstra fully endorsed an open access NBN that would result in equivalent access to all retailers, providing a platform on which all providers, including Telstra, could innovate and differentiate the services they chose to offer, competing on service and value as well as price.
“The core wholesale services will be made available to access seekers on a basis equivalent to Telstra’s own business units,” Ms McKenzie said.
“Unlike the current network where access for competitors has to be retro-fitted to an existing system, the NBN will use automated processes to give all providers easier ways of offering products and services to their customers.
“The current regulatory framework never envisaged the type of network, products, applications and services that the NBN can provide. If we continue to regulate for plain old telephone services then we are going to end up with plain old telephone services.”
Telstra’s submissions set out what regulatory changes are required to build the network if Australia is to make the most of the opportunities of the NBN, and avoid the significant risks from migration to a new network, including:
- Maintaining the integrity of the network, which means the Government should not try to slice up the network and give different elements to different providers and the Government should not force the network operator to accommodate old and new technologies, which are not compatible;
- Given the critical importance of telecommunications to public safety and national security, bidders must be able to demonstrate how their plan will provide for emergency services, particularly during the migration phase;
- Unnecessary regulation aimed at legacy networks should be removed;
Land access arrangements need to be streamlined to facilitate the deployment of more than 50,000 nodes; and - Important consumer protection and social policy objectives must be properly identified and funded.
In response to calls for separation, Telstra today also submitted evidence from a number of the world’s most respected regulatory experts to demonstrate the advantages to consumers – including costs savings – of an integrated telecommunications network operator, and how separation is not just harmful to, but destructive of, shareholder value and consumer benefits and undermines the incentives for investment in a next generation network.
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