Speaking at the Australian Telecommunication Users Group (ATUG) 2003 Conference Senator Richard Alston claimed a recent OECD report praising Australia's economy offers evidence that the federal government's telecommunications regulation regime was benefiting the telecommunications industry and consumers.
According to Alston, in many ways "Australia is a case study for the rest of the world. That's a very positive endorsement and we want to keep building on that," he said.
"Comments of no competition are not valid in terms of Telstra's recent announcements, challenges to its profits, and investment by other competitors," said Alston. "In the past 12 months I think we've been extremely active in fine-tuning the regulation, [and it's up to the industry to take advantage of that]...2003 will be in one sense a year of implementation."
Chris Anderson, the chief executive officer of SingTel Optus, told the conference he agreed the federal government's deregulation of the telecommunications industry had "done a fair job," but claimed Australian consumers were still paying too much for bandwidth, as a result of past regulatory systems.
He said the government was trying to streamline regulations, and the new regulations were an improvement, but increased competition was being hampered by "delaying tactics" from Telstra.
"Frankly, given Telstra's mastery of the system, particularly the system of delay, we think the jury is out as to whether the new regime will work," said Anderson. "We do need the delays taken out of the system. We are still waiting, sometimes up to six years...to get adjudication."
David Thodey, group managing director of the recently created business and government division of Telstra, told the conference during his speech that Telstra was "committed to competition".
"There is no substance to the argument that the deregulated market in Australia raises barriers to competition. It is a very competitive market and we're delighted that it is," said Thodey. "Our job is to compete. We will compete aggressively in this market but we will compete fairly."
Anderson also indicated there were several ways state and territory governments could encourage telecommunications in their area, for example by simplifying planning requirements for infrastructure investments and effective use of government owned infrastructure. In addition, the governments could spend their own telecommunications budgets in a way that increased the level of competitive telecommunications infrastructure - mainly by not buying from Telstra - according to Anderson.
He gave the example of Optus investing AU$100 million in a fibre optic network between Brisbane and Cairns, which was possible because it had received a commitment of a certain level of government spending over a number of years.
"Governments have got to take the risk of going with new players," said Anderson. "Telstra still gets 75 percent of government spending..that only helps entrench the monopoly."
"I implore state and territory governments to use all the levers at their disposal to bring real competition to Australian telecommunications," said Anderson.
Telstra argues governments already do this, by holding open tenders for projects.
Warwick Watkins, director general and surveyor general of the NSW department of Information Technology and Management, said that "social inclusion" was a main driver of the NSW governments spending and policy decisions.
"We [government and industry] are in the business of trying to improve quality of life," he said. "Affordable bandwidth is a key component in the delivery of health and education services."
Pffttt. Alston & T(H)elstra patting each other on the back again. Wot a load of old codswollop. There is no competition! T(H)elstra sets the level of the playing field because it controls the infastructure, & all the others follow suit. Thats NOT competition! Even Optus who has SOME network of its own, just copies the T(H)elstra schema.