ACCC issues ULL draft principles and prices, access terms issued

The Draft Pricing Principles for the Unconditioned Local Loop Service Amendment Determination 2008 amends the pricing principles made by the ACCC in November 2007. The amended Determination now includes indicative prices for the ULLS to apply through to July 2009.

According to the ACCC, interested parties are invited to make submissions by 5 pm 14 May on the ACCC's website.

The ACCC has also released a draft pricing principles determination and indicative prices for the wholesale line rental service (WLR) and local carriage service (LCS). The draft is relevant for the period 1 January 2008 to 31 July 2009, the date at which the declarations are due to expire and interested parties are invited to make submissions by 5 pm 14 May.

Further, the ACCC has published a final determination made in the arbitration of a dispute over access to the ULLS. The decision was made on 20 March 2008 and was published following a compulsory legislative consultation period on publication.

The ULLS final determination specifies the monthly rental, connection and disconnection charges for which Telstra supplies the ULLS to PowerTel. This follows the parties being unable to agree on these ULLS terms and PowerTel notifying a dispute for ACCC arbitration.

The ACCC has specified a ULLS rental charge of $14.30 per service per month in metropolitan band 2 for 2007-08, and also specified charges for which ULLS services are connected or disconnected, either individually or as part of a ‘managed network migration’ of bulk ADSL services to the ULLS. The ULLS charges specified in the determination depend on the relevant year and geographic band for the service.

Telstra had proposed an ULLS rental charge of $30 per service per month in all bands. Both the ACCC (August 2006) and the Australian Competition Tribunal (May 2007) were not satisfied that such a price was reasonable. Despite these rulings, Telstra had continued to require access seekers to pay $30 per month.

Another two disputes, notified by XYZed and Request, were resolved in a manner consistent with and on the same date as the PowerTel determination. These follow earlier ULLS determinations made in December 2007 and January 2008.

The charges result from applying the ACCC's longstanding pricing principles for the ULLS and the ruling of the Australian Competition Tribunal on ULLS pricing in May 2007.

The final determinations and accompanying statements of reasons will be available on the ACCC's website. The ACCC is also continuing to arbitrate several ULLS access disputes.

accc access and collaboration draft issued issues networking prices principles terms ull