<div dir="ltr">Sure, I more meant why is the speculation about the ACCC exiting its regulatory function over the telecommunications industry instead of ACMA, who have arguably a much less useful role to play than the ACCC.</div>

<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 5:01 PM, Catchall <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:support@twig.com.au" target="_blank">support@twig.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">


  
    
  
  <div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
    <div>ACMA is definitely needed for the
      "other" areas of its interest/control, namely radio..  Without our
      airwaves would be rife with interference..<br>
      <br>
      ACCC is needed for its "other" areas of interest/control, like
      stopping monopolies stangle hard working small businesses.  <br>
      <br>
      Not all areas of interest/control are useless in these bodies..
      But perhaps the lines of crossover are too blurred which makes
      seeing effective working practices hard to see...<br>
      <br>
      <br>
      Mal (VK2XFW)<br>
      <div>
        <p> </p>
        <center> <font size="3" color="#CC0000" face="Arial"> <b>TWIG
              Solutions</b></font><font color="#CC0000"><br>
          </font> <i><font color="#555555">Your Mobile
              Technology Partner.</font></i><br>
          <font size="3" color="#000000"><b>E-mail:</b> <u></u><a href="mailto:sales@twig.com.au" target="_blank">sales@twig.com.au</a>   <b>Phone:</b> 02
              8004 2000<br>
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      </div><div><div class="h5">
      On 18/02/2014 4:46 PM, Geordie Guy wrote:<br>
    </div></div></div><div><div class="h5">
    <blockquote type="cite">
      <div dir="ltr">Why don't we keep the ACCC and get rid of ACMA? </div>
      <div class="gmail_extra"><br>
        <br>
        <div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 1:01 PM,
          Narelle <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:narellec@gmail.com" target="_blank">narellec@gmail.com</a>></span>
          wrote:<br>
          <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
            <div dir="ltr">
              <p class="MsoNormal">Opinion in CommsDay today comes out
                swinging against the
                ACCC and some of the pillars of Australia’s competition
                regulation. “[T]he time
                may have come for the ACCC to vacate its role as the de
                facto comptroller and
                consigliere for the Australian telecommunications
                industry”.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"><br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">What would this mean for ACMA? Comms
                Day may be reading the govt correctly, they may be not.<br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">
                <br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Thoughts?<br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"><br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Narelle</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"><br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"><br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">From Comms Day today<br>
              </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">COMMENT BY GRAHAME LYNCH</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Is a new 2014 Telecommunications
                  Act in the offing?</b></p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Is the Federal government gearing up
                for the most
                far-reaching overhaul of telecommunications legislation</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">and regulation in seventeen years—in
                effect, a new 2014
                Telecommunications Act that replaces</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">the 1997 act and the
                telecommunications sections of trade
                practices legislation?</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">That’s certainly the implication of
                the messaging coming out
                of Canberra over the past few days.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">EXHIBIT A: Parliamentary secretary
                Paul Fletcher told
                parliament last week “the current regulatory</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">framework is fundamentally based on a
                1990s world of
                relatively stable technologies and business</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">models which placed great emphasis on
                the predominance of
                the fixed-line network—which was certainly</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">a valid assumption at the time. Since
                that time, of course,
                there has been a steady accretion of</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">layer upon layer of rules and
                regulations. Some of these
                rules and regulations are important for facilitating</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">competition but others are not of
                such evident value in
                2014. It is timely to ask whether the</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">policy objectives underpinning
                particular regulatory
                measures in the communications sector remain</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">valid; if they do not, the case for
                those regulations being
                retained is very difficult to see.”</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">EXHIBIT B: The “framing” paper for
                the NBN cost-benefit
                review released last Thursday night reads</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">less like a slight calibration of the
                status quo and more
                like the type of paper one would release if one</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">was contemplating a complete
                “re-boot” of the entire policy
                and legislative assumptions that underpin</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">the Australian telecommunications
                sector. It states that
                “Australia is unusual in vesting responsibility</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">for economic regulation of
                telecommunications in a
                generalist body whose responsibilities include</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">administration of the competition
                laws.”</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">“Originally, the decision to transfer
                those powers to the
                ACCC was based on the view that telecommunications-
                specific provisions would merge over time into the
                national
                access regime established under Part IIIA of then Trade
                Practices Act. However, no
                such confluence has occurred nor</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">seems likely to occur, though it may
                well be that some
                aspects of the current telecommunications provisions
                will eventually be substantially streamlined. In the
                light
                of those considerations, and of the</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">broader factors determining the
                efficient allocation of
                functions in a regulatory system, the panel</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">would welcome views on whether the
                current allocation of
                responsibilities should remain or alternatively,</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">what alternative approach would be
                preferable.”</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">EXHIBIT C: The same framing paper
                invites a complete
                “re-think” on the assumptions underlying</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">the NBN policy, which, of course, was
                the end-point of the
                open access debate and policy evolution</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">that began in earnest as long ago as
                2001 and accelerated in
                2005 under Telstra’s plea for regulatory</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">relief so it could build an FTTN
                network. Among the issues
                on the table: should the NBN refrain</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">from overbuild of privately held
                networks that can achieve
                NBN-level functionalities, should retail</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">service providers be able to buy
                equity in NBN Co, how
                should cross-subsidies for loss making services</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">be best provided and most
                significantly, “What broader
                structural model or models for the industry</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">should the panel consider”?</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">The corridors of power now host
                alternative intellectual
                viewpoints to the access seeker-driven</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">"victim mentality" agenda that has
                dominated
                Australian telecom policy for a decade.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">The failure of the ACCC to adopt a
                consistent regulatory
                approach that would provide predictability</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">and certainty for telecommunications
                network investors has
                been well catalogued, especially in this</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">journal, but the regulator persists,
                oblivious to criticism.
                Now taxpayers are potentially exposed to upwards of tens
                of billions of dollars of liability simply so that
                My Little ISP Pty Ltd can theoretically</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">play in the same league as Telstra
                and SingTel.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">From 2002 or so, the ACCC acted as if
                making access seekers
                more reliant on below-cost access to</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Telstra’s network would somehow
                reduce Telstra’s dominance,
                seemingly blind to the obvious endpoint</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">that the investment impasse this
                spawned provided limited
                short term benefits to some citizens</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">as consumers (the million or two who
                took a slightly cheaper
                Telstra-sourced, access-seeker resold</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">broadband service in urban areas) and
                a medium to long term
                cost to all citizens as taxpayers (who are</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">exposed to the risk of the 100%
                government subsidised NBN
                and are compelled to out lay tens of billions of dollars
                of compensation to big
                bad Telstra).</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">On one hand we had the ACCC denying
                that it priced access
                too low, even when at the same time</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">its own explanatory documents were
                affirming that it
                employed pricing methodologies such as “retail minus’ on
                already price capped retail services precisely because
                they delivered the lowest price outcome.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">At the same time, it constantly
                shifted the methodology goal
                posts, repeatedly deferring costs to</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">a future which would never arrive: a
                so-called “tilted annuity”
                designed to reward access seekers with</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">short term prices well below their
                sustainable cost. A
                decade on, the ACCC’s cost models even now</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">only allow Telstra to recover costs
                at a monthly rate of
                between $16 (ULL Band 2) and $24 (ADSL</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Wholesale) per line when the copper
                network’s actual
                replacement network in the form of the NBN</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">has estimated it needed to earn $32
                by as soon as next year
                and above $50 within five years to meet</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">its own (likely over optimistic in
                itself) business plan.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">This ongoing intellectual fraud
                persisted because of a
                policy environment where a spectacularly</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">well-organised and articulate access
                seeker lobby
                successfully equated their own interests with the</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">“public interest” and created a sense
                of constant crisis
                about the regulatory regime and Telstra’s</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">“dominance.” Concerns over Telstra’s
                dominance and likely
                behaviour under privatisation also led to</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">a succession of regulations governing
                its service and
                connection levels, at a potential cost of a billion</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">or more dollars relative to benefits.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">The fact that the vast majority of
                Telstra access seekers
                and ISPs whose business formation was inspired by the
                1997 reforms have sold out or merged for collective
                hundreds of millions of dollars in</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">shareholder return—nearly 20 such
                entities bought by iiNet
                alone—demonstrates how over-egged this</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">sense of perpetual grievance and
                crisis was. Ditto, the
                nationalisation of fixed network capital investment</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">and deal to provide tens of billions
                of dollars of NBN
                compensation to Telstra has correlated</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">with a near doubling of Telstra’s
                share price since 2010. So
                much for crimping the 600 pound gorilla.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">As Malcolm Turnbull memorably
                described it, one senses a
                conspiracy against the taxpayer.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">1997 ASSUMPTIONS CHANGE: Indeed,
                developments over the last
                17 years have left behind the</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">best intentions of the 1997
                Telecommunications Act. One
                obvious change was the rise of broadband,</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">fuelled by the emergence of cheap
                Chinese-made DSLAMs, and
                the sea change this created in the</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">layers where value is created over
                telecommunications
                networks—that is, not just through end user</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">access charges, but through
                over-the-top services and
                serving facilities in data centres.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Another was the rise of mobile tech
                to dominance and its
                ability to offer substitutes to almost every</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">monetisable service hitherto
                monopolised by the fixed
                network. Stephen Conroy, his advisers, bureaucrats</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">and industry supporters, were
                unfortunately so blindsided by
                fixed access seeker and then</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">FTTH lobby rhetoric that they failed
                to react to these
                developments, committing ever more public</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">policy attention and resource to the
                apparently vexing but
                increasingly receding priority of vertical</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">integration and retail dominance in
                the fixed network access
                market.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Now the writing is on the wall for
                these decade-old
                homilies. The new government appears determined</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">to deliver on red tape reduction in a
                way its predecessors
                under Rudd, Gillard and Howard</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">did not—and the vast, unwieldy
                pot-pourri of 20th century
                telecommunications legislation seems ripe</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">for dismantling. One of the chief
                dissenters from the
                received wisdom over the past decade, Professor</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Henry Ergas, now sits on the panel
                charged with providing
                primary advice to government on what</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">new approach it should adopt,
                alongside some interesting
                characters such as Alison Deans, who, as a</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">former Ebay executive, presumably
                brings a nuanced view of
                the interplay between OTT, access, fixed</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">and mobile in the telecommunications
                ecosystem.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">The new panel has already overtly
                signalled that the time
                may have come for the ACCC to vacate</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">its role as the de facto comptroller
                and consigliere for the
                Australian telecommunications industry.</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">Almost certainly the emphasis will be
                on compelling telecom
                operators—and the private sector more</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">generally—to take on more of the
                risk, heavy lifting and
                reward in building and delivering next generation</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">services. Lest this be seen as a
                fool’s errand it should be
                revealed that Telstra CEO David Thodey</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">and a representative of Optus’
                ultimate owner Temasek are
                meeting with Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">later this week to discuss how to
                unlock private sector
                capital for infrastructure investment. Legislative</p>
              <p class="MsoNormal">and regulatory incentives—and
                disincentives– will almost
                certainly be a topic for discussion.</p>
              <span><font color="#888888"><br clear="all">
                  <br>
                  -- <br>
                  <br>
                  <br>
                  Narelle Clark<br>
                  <a href="mailto:president@isoc-au.org.au" target="_blank">president@isoc-au.org.au</a><br>
                  <a href="mailto:narellec@gmail.com" target="_blank">narellec@gmail.com</a>
                </font></span></div>
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