The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) today announced that the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, has directed the ACCC to undertake a review of the price control arrangements on Telstra, which are administered by the ACCC.
The direction requires the ACCC to hold a public inquiry into whether there is a need for price control arrangements to continue after the expiration of the current price control arrangements on 30 June 2001. If the ACCC finds there still is a need for price controls after this time, the direction requires the ACCC to outline what form it believes any future price control arrangements should take.
At present, Telstra is subject to a series of price controls under the Telstra Carrier Charges - Price Control Arrangements, Notifications and Disallowance Determination No. 1 of 2000. Some of the price controls on Telstra that will be of relevance to this review include the provision of untimed local calls; the requirement on Telstra to cap local calls at 22 cents per call (GST inclusive); and the local call parity requirement which requires Telstra to ensure residential, charity and business customers in non-metropolitan areas pay broadly the same price for untimed local calls as those in metropolitan areas.
"The ACCC considers the review to be of particular importance for the telecommunications industry, as the price control arrangements have a number of implications for the efficient and equitable pricing of a series of telecommunications services," ACCC Commissioner responsible for telecommunications, Mr Rod Shogren, said today.
The Minister has directed the ACCC to report its findings by late January 2001.
"The tight deadline means the consultation process will be intense. Despite this, the ACCC intends to conduct a two week public consultation process in early November", Mr Shogren said.
In order to prepare parties for the public consultation process, the Commission intends to release a discussion paper by the end of September 2000. Interested parties will then have four weeks to make submissions on the discussion paper.
After considering these submissions, and conducting the public consultation process, the Commission aims to release a draft report in mid-to-late December. Interested parties will then be provided with an opportunity to make comments on the draft report by mid January 2001. The ACCC expects to finalise its review of the price control arrangements by late January, as directed by the Minister.