Issues paper6 Jul 2012
The ACCC released an issues paper into making a final access determination for the wholesale ADSL service. The ACCC also extended the public inquiry until 13 February 2013.
Extension of inquiry
In response to a request from Telstra, the ACCC extended the period for submissions by three weeks until 24 August 2012.
Submissions
We sought submissions on a range of primarily non-price issues to assist us in making the draft final access determination.
Access to confidential material
AAPT, Herbert Geer (on behalf of Adam Internet and iiNet), Nextgen and Optus provided confidential versions of their submissions to the issues paper.
Telstra also provided confidential versions of its submissions and additional confidential material. This includes a confidential-only consultant report of Gowrisankaran and MacKie-Mason on "Efficient Pricing of ADSL Wholesale services". Interested parties seeking access to this material must be approved by Telstra and will be required to execute an applicable confidentiality undertaking acceptable to Telstra. To obtain access to the confidential version of Telstra's submission contact Mr Gerry O'Brien at Telstra: gerry.obrien@team.telstra.com or 03 8649 2042.
Information request to Telstra
On 10 August 2012 the ACCC sent an information request to Telstra.
Further consultation on congestion issues
On 5 September 2012 the ACCC sought further submissions from interested stakeholders on the relevance of network congestion to making the final access determination for wholesale ADSL. In response to the second discussion paper, Telstra submitted on the relevance of network congestion to setting terms of access to wholesale ADSL. These issues were not addressed in the second discussion paper and consequently the ACCC did not seek submissions on the subject matter.
Second information request to Telstra
On 27 September 2012 the ACCC sent a second information request to Telstra.
Submissions to the open letter on congestion
In October 2012 the ACCC received the following submissions in response to the open letter on congestion. AAPT and Herbert Geer (on behalf of Adam Internet and iiNet) provided confidential versions of their submissions.
On 16 November 2012 Telstra provided a further public and confidential submission on ADSL congestion.
Additional submissions
On 5 December 2012 Telstra provided the ACCC with a further public expert report on wholesale ADSL pricing. Telstra also provided the ACCC with two confidential expert reports on wholesale ADSL pricing.
Extension to the wholesale ADSL final access determination public inquiry
The ACCC decided to extend the period for making the final access determination for the wholesale ADSL service until 13 August 2013.
The ACCC was unable to finalise the final access determination within the previous extended period due to the time and complexity involved in determining the matter.
The ACCC also extended the expiry date of the IAD for the wholesale ADSL service until the day immediately before the day the final access determination came into force.