Bowing to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) demands, albeit over three months late and minus the watchdog's widely perceived empty threat of AU$10,000-plus penalties, Telstra is readying to launch its stripped down ADSL service called Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol (L2TP) to its wholesale FlexStream customers.
-We're looking forward to commercialising it very soon," Telstra Wholesale spokesperson Graeme Salt told ZDNet Australia -We're confident we're meeting the ACCC's criteria."
Salt said that eight Telstra Wholesale customers were currently trialling the infrastructure, amidst -strong feedback".
Telstra was slapped with a Competition Notice by the ACCC on September 7, 2001, giving it a 12-week deadline to change its anti-competitive conduct by reducing wholesale pricing and improving access to its wholesale network by November 30, 2001. Whilst the telco titan moved to address the wholesale pricing issue, it said a full commercial rollout of L2TP would happen in March 2002 and not before. Living up to its reputation as an old dog with no bite, the competition watchdog agreed to Telstra's self-appointed deadline and deferred its Competition Notice - and proposed penalties -- from coming into effect.
Boldly confident L2TP will hit the mark, Salt said: -What they do with the Competition Notice is their choice."
At the time of Telstra's non-compliance, commissioner for telecommunications Rod Shogren said the ACCC was confident by mid-March everything would be sorted out.
The ACCC has been contacted for comment.
As usual, the ACCC aqueouses in the face of our wonderfull phone company. Any other organisation which flouted the rules so blatantly, would be fined on the spot, but not our T(H)elstra. Their arrogance is unbelievable. The Mad Hatter pales into insignificance, compared to our phone company. Their corporate image is comparable to a skunk.