After threats of structural separation seemed to loom large for Telstra last week, the head of the ACCC has added his voice to the government's in stepping back from the suggestions of a split.
The Minister for Communications, the Arts and IT, Helen Coonan, said last week that the government's expert taskforce, which is in charge of monitoring the tender process for the proposed urban fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) deployment, is considering the "structural separation" — the division of wholesale and retail businesses — of Telstra.
Chairman of the ACCC, Graeme Samuel, yesterday denied that the Coalition will mandate structural separation and said that there has been no change in government policy on the issue.
"I've never seen structural separation as being on the radar screen of government policy certainly for the past four years since I've been involved with the ACCC," Samuel told Sky News.
However, Samuels said that there are certain circumstances where serious talk of a separation may resurface. "Suffice to say though that if Telstra is not awarded the FTTN contract either by this government, or if there were a Labor government ... either way that FTTN network would become structurally separated from Telstra.
"So I think there are possible scenarios where structural separation occurs as a matter of fact without any forcing upon Telstra of those set of circumstances. That would depend upon who is awarded the contract to develop the FTTN network."
The Minister herself has also backed away from committing the government to a split telling ABC on Sunday that "this story has really got ahead of itself and people are getting a bit excited about nothing", and adding there will be no unilateral separation mandated by the Coalition.
However, Coonan echoed Samuels in highlighting how the planned fibre-to-the-node network may cause structural separation to become a consideration. Coonan said the expert taskforce will still need to "test the arguments" for structural separation should a bidder other than Telstra be chosen to the build the network.
Telstra, meanwhile, welcomed the lowering of temperatures on the question, saying: "The Minister has taken one step backwards from the precipice and Telstra shareholders will welcome it."
AAP contributed to this story.
Telstra should be split for once and for all, as it would end the debate and finally we may get some decent competition. Telstra for all too long has had a monoply and held this country to ransom with slow rollout of broadband, slow broadband speeds and high costs and now they are arguing that they should be able to charge a higher wholesale price due to the size of our country all while comparing this to the UK. Get real Telstra and try looking at the real world. Again its Telstra looking after Telstra and its share holders and where does that leave the poor consumer? Paying through the nose!!!