Telstra has lashed out at Primus' demands to strike an Internet interconnection peering agreement within a month, saying it doesn't regard the carrier as a "proper peer".
A peering agreement works on a quid pro quo basis where carriers of equivalent status don't charge each other to access their sites.
"iPrimus may be growing but they're not on a comparable scale yet," public affairs manager, Telstra Wholsale, Graeme Salt, told ZDNet.
"We don't believe their network is the same quality to justify peering."
A representative from Telstra's regulatory department agreed, "Primus isn't bringing anything to the table."
"Telstra doesn't regard Primus as a peer in the Net field," he said.
Primus has threatened to take its case to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) if negotiations with Telstra - which it claims have been dragging on for 12 months - aren't tied up within four weeks.
Primus' Internet arm iPrimus claims charges to access the Telstra network costs it over AU$600,000 per month and estimates it will run up a AU$15 million bill during 2001 if charges continue.
"We're currently charged to access Telstra's Web site and its customers, whilst Telstra refuses to pay anything for access to our network," Primus GM, planning and interconnect, Roger Nicoll, said.
"Up until now [these] costs haven't been as large because we weren't as big but with iPrimus growing from 85,000 users to 230,000 within the last year we can't tolerate these charges any further."
Telstra claims it recently offered Primus a "very competitive" price for interconnection and although it intends to "pursue negotiations", it can't guarantee they'll be settled within a month.
"We've got an ongoing healthy commercial relationship with Primus and we'll review this as the companies evolve and commercial circumstances dictate," Salt said.
Primus is confident ACCC intervention will be successful, pointing to action brought about by the competition watchdog in 1996 which required peering between Telstra and its three largest competitors, Optus, Connect.com and Ozemail.
"It's a while since we've seen anyone else take a fight against Telstra," Nicoll said. "Clearly we think with three decisions to create peering arrangements in the past we'll be the fourth such decision."
Although the ACCC confirmed that it issued a number of competition notices in relation to peering some time ago, "the specifics of this particular case would have to be looked at on its individual merits," ACCC senior director of access, Chris Pattas said.
