The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) slapped a competition notice on Telstra at the end of last week, giving the telco giant 12-weeks to change its tune or face stiff penalties for its anti-competitive behaviour in the DSL arena.
-We're waiting until wholesale pricing issues with the ACCC have been revised," Dingo Blue's marketing director Jackie Priestley, told ZDNet Australia.
-We've got to wait until it's viable...until we can see a light at the end of the tunnel and are able to provide it [DSL] to customers at a reasonable price, we won't enter the space," Priestley added.
Dingo Blue has been trying to determine its customers' requirements -- with a registration of interest in DSL on its Web site until recently -- and it's not lack of interest that's preventing the telco's broadband rollout, according to Priestley.
-We want to be in there with the market but want to offer a quality service that allows us to hold on to our customers," she said.
-It's about doing something sustainable...we're very keen to do it when we can offer it at a sustainable price. Consumers don't want to pay the AU$400 a month alternative, not when they can get AU$25 dial-up a month."
According to Priestley, if you look at Telstra's implementation, there are technical issues to consider too. -It's not just about pricing, it's about quality. Some in the marketplace people have over-promised and under-delivered."
The ACCC claims that Telstra isn't providing a wholesale broadband service that will allow service providers to compete with its BigPond ADSL service. "This conduct denies competitors the ability to differentiate the performance and functionality of their services from the Telstra retail service and to compete fairly with Telstra's retail prices," ACCC chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said in a statement.
The issuance of the competition notice received a round of applause from rivals OzEmail and Excite@Home.
-The competition notice is definitely in the best interests of Australians," OzEmail Internet CEO, Justin Milne, said. -The current situation is retarding the take-up of broadband services in Australia, which is ultimately affecting our national productivity. While the slow, inefficient, unreliable and possibly uncompetitive rollout of DSL might suit the monopolist telco, it definitely does not serve the nation's best interests, nor those of organisations like OzEmail who would like to provide DSL services to all Australians in a competitive manner to Telstra."
Excite@Home also expressed its support for fairer access to the Telstra network, saying that Telstra has had its retail ADSL service in the marketplace since August last year but with -no viable wholesale product" and a clear advantage over Optus@Home in its ability to offer ADSL services to potentially 90 percent of its network.
"Telstra's wholesale charges so far have made it unsustainable for Optus@Home to introduce a competitive residential offering based on ADSL. They were only marginally lower than the retail pricing for Telstra's residential ADSL service, said Chris Chapman," CEO, Excite@Home Australia.
Telstra's monopoly abuse is detrimental to every one form the consumers to others ISP's.
I can't believe the government does allow this to happen!