[AusNOG] Carrier Licensing Changes - Residential and small business customers

[Paul Julian]

Hi All, just wondering if anybody who is affected has reviewed the latest carrier licensing declaration released yesterday, I'm interested in people's opinions who this affects, we are directly affected by this new ruling and to be honest I'm not sure how we should read it, will it be good or bad for us, only time and money will tell I suppose.
 
On the one hand the government is protecting NBN by removing competition to a degree as I see it, I can see the merit in that but also the anti-competition nature of it, by creating this ruling they are trying to stop TPG from rolling out their network to MDU's in a retail only situation, but on the other hand there are a number of smaller players like us who go to a fair amount of expense and risk and install there equipment in a building and need to recover that money and make some $$$ along the way, the issue for us though is that now we will legally have to share our kit even though we have never made allowances for that design in our budgets.
 
Luckily for us we have designed a wholesale component of our services so are prepared to some degree, but how far the government will go to force us to operate separate wholesale and retail entities is something we will have to find out.
For a small operator if we are forced to structurally and legally separate our business into wholesale and retail we might as well close the doors, it just may not be viable I don't think, and there are a number of other small players out there who may have to make the that same decision once they take into account what is required to comply.
 
As I said, I am interested in any discussion about this, people's opinions and thoughts, it could be a game changer for quite a few people, or maybe not, and I really wonder if it's for the best, considering that it covers residential and small business I think it's unfair, residential sure, but small business I don't agree with.
 
 I really think Malcolm has jumped the gun on this and should rethink the strategy rather than just make a decision in two months with what it seems as little consultation with the industry, I honestly don't see how you can make decisions about things like this so hastily, of course when government money is concerned that is another story.
 
The Declaration and the associated Explanatory Statement and Regulation Impact Statement are available on the Federal Register of Legislative Instrument. The registered Declaration appears on ComLaw as F2014L01699 and will come into effect 1/1/15.
 
Regards
Paul
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