Telstra reticent on retail ADSL price revision - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Telstra reticent on retail ADSL price revision

By Rachel Lebihan, ZDNet Australia
November 21, 2001
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Telstra-reticent-on-retail-ADSL-price-revision/0,130061791,120261965,00.htm

Telstra has refused to say whether retail ADSL pricing will rise on the back of its decision to drop its wholesale pricetag, despite implying this would be the case earlier in the year.

The telco behemoth buckled under pressure from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) this week and conceded to reduce its ADSL wholesale pricing, although it refused to go into the intricacies of its new pricing structure.

The ACCC slapped the telco giant with a competition notice in September this year, giving Telstra twelve weeks to change conduct the competition regulator deemed to be anti-competitive, or face massive fines.

Whilst Telstra declined to disclose how much it cost to produce ADSL and how much it was selling it on to competitors for, it said at the time that its wholesale pricetag was -around cost".

-If the ACCC wants us to increase the wholesale gap do they really want us to increase ADSL retail pricing?" Graeme Salt, public affairs manager Telstra Wholesale, said in an interview with ZDNet Australia at the time.

However, Salt refused to be drawn into discussions about the possibility of a retail ADSL price hike yesterday, saying that Retail was different business division.

Telstra Retail in turn said it was not aware of the company's wholesale price revision.

"We can't make any comment at this stage on pricing," a spokesperson for Telstra's retail group said. "We aim to get a return on our substantial broadband investment of AU$1 billion," the spokesperson added.