Alston dangles another telco carrot for bush users - News - Communications

To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

--------------------------------------------------------------
This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Alston dangles another telco carrot for bush users

By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
July 16, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Alston-dangles-another-telco-carrot-for-bush-users/0,130061791,120266714,00.htm

The Federal Government has announced a swag of measures today that are designed to further its agenda on the full privatisation of Telstra.

The Governement said it plans to dole out AU$705.8 million during the next three years in universal service obligation (USO) subsidies that IT and Communications Minister Richard Alston claims will be provided to help companies meet their requirements under the obligation. Currently, the only universal service provider is Telstra.

To ensure compliance with the obligation, Alston announced the establishment of a telecommunications Network Reliability Framework (NRF), which requires the USO provider to self-report faults on individual telephone services to the Australian Communications Authority (ACA). The provider will be required to take pro-active action to prevent multiple faults, and will have to investigate any breaches that occur.

The Shadow Minister for Communications, Lindsay Tanner, disagreed that the NRF will keep Telstra in line, and said that public ownership is the only way to guarantee adequate service levels.

-If Telstra is privatised, any regulatory arrangements will quickly become outdated. No government will have the power to properly regulate a privately-owned company which controls the vast bulk of Australia's telecommunications infrastructure and delivers most of its services," Tanner said in a statement. -A fully privatised Telstra will abandon its service obligations to regional and low profit customers and concentrate on lucrative metropolitan and business markets. -

With Telstra and the ACCC at loggerheads earlier this year over Telstra's wholesale services, a third Government announcement today said the Senate had passed the Trade Practices Amendment (Telecommunications) Bill, which it claimed will streamline the dispute resolution process when ACCC arbritration is deemed necessary.