NBN
Co
has
rejected
all
suggested
improvements
to
service
quality
by
Telstra
and
Optus
in
a
commercially-negotiated
process
it
lauds
as
successful.
The
failure
of
closed-door
negotiations
for
what
goes
into
the
wholesale
broadband
agreement
(WBA),
has
retail
service
providers
(RSPs)
wanting
direct
intervention
by
regulators
and
government
to
lift
standards.
A
major
sticking
point
in
the
rewrite
of
the
regulated
special
access
undertaking
(SAU),
which
governs
price
and
non-price
terms
for
NBN
access
through
to
2040,
is
that
it
seeks
to
raise
prices,
without
improving
most
broadband
services.
Service
standards
are
included
in
the
SAU
for
the
first
time
but
they
are
outdated
–
and
while
NBN
Co
claims
[pdf]
to
have
made
some
concessions
in
this
area,
big
RSPs
say
the
changes
aren’t
“material”.
The
fact
that
RSPs
have
had
limited
to
no
luck
in
shifting
the
needle
on
service
standards
in
the
commercially-negotiated
WBA
process
should
come
as
no
surprise;
it
was
exactly
this
power
imbalance
that
led
to
the
SAU
being
put
up
for
review.
Telstra
said
[pdf]
it
had
had
no
success
in
trying
to
negotiate
better
standards
directly
with
NBN
Co.
“There
has
been
no
material
improvement
…
as
part
of
WBA
negotiations,”
Telstra
said.
“Further,
NBN
Co
has
declined
to
include
any
service
quality
improvements
put
forward
by
Telstra.
The
story
is
the
same
over
at
Optus
[pdf].
“We
have
proposed
four
reasonable
and
what
we
believe
to
be
minor
service
level
improvements
in
our
negotiation
with
NBN
Co,”
Optus
said.
“All
have
been
rejected.”
The
telcos
have
all
but
given
up
on
achieving
anything
in
commercial
negotiations
with
NBN
Co,
and
are
focused
instead
on
trying
to
drive
change
through
the
regulated
process.
Telstra
said
that
baseline
service
standards
“must
be
expanded
to
address
areas
of
concern
raised
by
RSPs
that
have
not
been
resolved
through
commercial
negotiations.”
“These
relate
to
outage
notification,
priority
assistance
and
speed
rebates,”
it
said,
adding
there
also
needed
to
be
consequences
for
NBN
Co
when
it
missed
service
standards.
Telstra
has
previously
outlined
the
issues
around
outage
notification,
with
apparently
“planned
works”
sometimes
attracting
as
little
as
one
hour’s
notice.
It
is
also
unhappy
that
“NBN
Co
can
charge
RSPs
for
50/20
and
100/20
speeds
supplied
on
FTTC,
FTTB
and
FTTN
lines
but
can
supply
speeds
as
low
as
25Mbps
without
any
consequence.”
While
NBN
Co
claims
to
have
offered
some
concessions
on
service
standards,
Telstra
said
these
either
low-balled
NBN
Co’s
current
performance,
or
would
benefit
customer
numbers
that
could
be
counted
on
one
hand.
“For
example,
while
the
inclusion
of
service
levels
for
connection
and
fault
rectification
in
isolated
areas
is
welcome,
it
is
not
a
material
concession
given
the
very
low
number
of
customers
that
will
benefit
in
the
first
regulatory
cycle
[the
three
years
through
to
FY26],”
Telstra
said.
“In
Telstra’s
experience,
one
[customer]
in
the
last
12
months
and
one
currently
scheduled
for
the
remainder
of
this
year
would
be
covered
by
the
proposed
concession.
NBN
Co
argues
it
largely
can’t
improve
service
quality
standards
while
it
still
has
customers
on
copper-based
networks,
because
higher
standards
would
be
too
expensive
to
meet,
and
would
damage
revenues.
It
argues
that
most
change
to
service
quality
will
come
when
more
of
its
customer
base
is
on
fibre-to-the-premises,
but
that
depends
entirely
on
a
slow
upgrade
program,
for
which
NBN
Co
has
consistently
refused
to
provide
statistics
on,
and
on
customers
paying
higher
prices
to
qualify
to
be
upgraded.
Telstra
is
critical
of
copper
being
used
as
a
roadblock
to
improving
service
quality.
“While
FTTP
has
the
potential
to
solve
many
problems
experienced
by
end-users,
the
reliance
on
FTTP
is
misleading
from
a
quality-of-service
perspective,”
it
said.
“The
number
of
end-users
who
will
benefit
from
FTTP
in
the
first
regulatory
period
[through
FY26]
is
limited.
Further
most
of
those
who
will
benefit
will
have
to
pay
for
the
privilege
through
higher-priced
plans.
“NBN
Co
is
simply
not
doing
enough
to
support
the
majority
of
its
customer
base
who
will
remain
on
MTM
[multi-technology
mix]
technology
for
at
least
the
first
regulatory
cycle.”
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