When it comes to accessing a Telstra exchange there is a clear process that has been developed to be fair and safe for everyone in the industry. It is clear that Simon Hackett (letters 12/2/08) doesn’t like process, or reality, so he blames Telstra instead.
Most times there are no queues or waiting periods in accessing a Telstra exchange. The main exception is when one carrier is establishing exchange space, called Telstra Exchange Building Access (TEBA) space, for access seeker requirements for the first time or augmenting the existing TEBA space. In those cases the relevant area is basically a construction site so Telstra sensibly requires that other carriers wait until the first carrier is finished creating the TEBA space.
The TEBA process sets out clearly defined timeframes for preliminary study, design and construction, completion and inspection of new TEBA facilities. TEBA establishment is carefully managed to ensure the safe, secure environment that access seekers demand.
However, where there is room in an existing TEBA space, then Telstra does not prevent more than one access seeker using that space at any given time to install their own equipment and connect to Telstra. Therefore it is wrong to say that Telstra has instituted a serial, “one at a time” process as a means to somehow deliberately slow access seekers.
The facts are that there are over 500 exchanges where competitors have successfully installed equipment – proof that the process has and is working well.
In terms of capacity constraints, we have some exchanges in commercially attractive suburbs of our capitals where there are six, seven or eight sets of competitor equipment. Not surprisingly, most access seekers want to go to the exchanges with the most customers attached to them. This means space does become constrained. There is nothing either mysterious or anti-competitive about that.
The fact is, however, that little more than 1 per cent of exchanges in the network are in some way full.
Now that Telstra has extended ADSL2+ to 900 mostly regional exchanges, competing ADSL2+ providers are lifting their heads from the low-cost but crowded suburban markets and thinking about a piece of the action. Simon claims that they can’t go to regional areas because of high backhaul costs “where not even Telstra would have an economic business case today” to rebuild. His case is condemned with his own words. Those transmission paths were expensive to build, and have very little traffic, but Simon expects access to be cheap? That’s not a rational commercial proposition.
How sincere competitors are about providing services in higher cost areas remains to be seen. Transmission aside, most of these exchanges are in regional Band 3 where the ACCC has insisted on higher ULL access prices relative to suburban Band 2, something that Telstra has argued against.
As Senator Conroy stated, “there is nothing stopping any competitors” extending into the areas where ADSL2+ has just rolled out – except their own reluctance to accept higher costs and lower margins, as Telstra has done, to serve more dispersed populations.
Kate McKenzie, GMD Telstra Wholesale
Glen Iris exchange.
Very commercially attractive. No competitors. 2008. Why?