Consultation on draft carrier licence condition

The Australian Government revised the draft carrier licence condition and then discussed the changes and the costs of compliance with the affected carriers.

The licence condition was finalised on 14 December 2014.

The Declaration for this licence condition and associated Explanatory Statement and Regulation Impact Statement are available on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments.

Carriers have six months from 1 January 2015 to meet new licence conditions. During that time, carriers must provide wholesale access on a non-discriminatory basis, but they don’t yet have to separate their wholesale and retail operations.

From 1 July 2015, the licence condition will require owners of high-speed networks servicing residential customers to:

• functionally separate their wholesale and retail operations
• provide access to competing service providers on the same non-discriminatory terms as those provided to their own retail operations

The carrier's wholesale company will also need to supply a Layer 2 Wholesale Service to other carriers and service providers, with the price of that service set at $27 per month.

The licence condition aims to make sure that carriers provide wholesale access to fibre-to-the-basement and similar networks. It also aims to remove their ability to favour their own downstream retail operations over other retailers on the network.

The licence condition will last for two years so the long-term regulatory arrangements for the sector can be settled. This is an element of the wider regulatory reform package that was announced on 11 December 2014.