The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report finds that the price of a broad basket of telecommunications services decreased by an average 21.4 percent between 1997-98 and 2000-01. The report also showed business consumers experienced a greater price decrease than residential consumers.
Telstra was able to meet its price cap obligations despite raising line rental charges by 16.5 percent over the 2000-01 financial year, because of a large decrease of 14.2 percent in the price of digital mobile services. This allowed a total price reduction of 3.9 percent.
Andrew Maiden, Telstra's group manager, public policy & international regulatory, told ZDNet Australia in an e-mail interview: -The reports confirm that Telstra's prices have declined significantly, and have complied completely with the relevant price controls. These reductions have further improved the competitiveness of the industry, and delivered substantial savings to consumers. The ACCC should give credit where it is due."
The full basket for business consumers dropped 22.6 percent over 1997-98 to 2000-01, while the corresponding residential price decrease was only 17.4 percent.
-Competitors are often at least 15-20 percent below Telstra," telecommunications analyst Paul Budde told ZDNet Australia. -Telstra knows it's impossible for them to lose the market, so they are happy to give 10 percent to a competitor and they can keep the market high."
With the complicated nature of the methodology Telstra used to report price changes, there is concern it will raise line rental charges further in the next financial year without a corresponding decrease in call costs.
-The price caps compel Telstra to reduce prices in consideration for increasing line rental charges to a level closer to their true cost," said Maiden. -That requirement is straightforward and unambiguous."
This was just down right crap reading.
Since when is it good business to increase prices for one service and decrease the price for another. Thats a bit double dutch if you ask me, so what did we actually benifit from this.
A mear 5 cents off our overall bill each month.
Does Telstra think we are all stupid, maybe they do, it's not hard to figure out what they are doing.
As far as i'm concerned, since they increased line rental, they should give away $25.00 worth of free calls each months.
Also, while i'm here, a word about their ADSL,
IT SUCKS, sums it up quite well.
300Mb limit on a broadband connection is a complete rip off, and the government should withdraw their crap restrictions they have imposed to try and stop illegal stuff on the net.
We are not all that stupid, so why should we have to pay for some idiots wrong doing.
Bye