Optus and Telstra unite in opposition to ACCC roaming inquiry

A Telstra exec has slammed Vodafone’s support for the ACCC’s roaming inquiry, with Optus offering rare backing.

A mobile phone tower in Newmarket. (Chris McCormack)

Potential ACCC regulation of the mobile phone industry has achieved rare agreement between Optus and Telstra, with the former strongly backing the latter’s opposition to any policy shift.

Only Vodafone is backing the ACCC and, in a speech at today’s CommsDay conference in Melbourne, Telstra’s regulatory boss Tony Warren has launched a broadside at Vodafone accusing it of being at best duplicitous.

The reason being that all around the world, except in regulated markets, Vodafone is opposed to mobile regulation but, incongruously, in Australia it is backing moves by the ACCC to possibly declare a wholesale domestic mobile roaming service.

The issue is domestic roaming, that is, if you have a Vodafone phone and travel to part of the country where its network is poor, you can switch into say a Telstra network.

Vodafone would have to pay for the service and the ACCC is looking at monitoring the price charged.

The regulator has been careful not to say just where it is heading, which is another issue because it has just launched a major market study into the sector.

ACCC boss Rod Sims told the CommsDay summit he would have an issues paper out on the roaming review by the end of this month and noted that the idea of having a separate review is to get the answer out early.

To underline Mr Warren’s point about regulation, Symbio Networks’ Rene Sugo yesterday contrasted the lack of competition on the NBN and the vibrant competition on the mobile network.

Sugo announced that Jim’s Mowing has signed up to Symbio’s reinforced iBoss platform today, highlighting how branded goods companies saw an upside in launching national businesses on mobile while the NBN fixed line service was too expensive.

Mr Warren made the point that competition was strong in an unregulated market and that investment by the major operators underlines this point.

Telstra was spending $1.7 billion a year on its mobile network, Optus some $950 million and Vodafone around $600m.

Mobile phone services operate on a national market so more competition in the city leads to better service in the bush and if you pay $1 a minute in Melbourne you would pay the same in the middle of the country.

If, however, the ACCC declared the service, then it would have to work out the price to be charged in the middle of the country which would almost certainly be higher than in the bush.

If the service is being delivered now, then why bother with regulation was the point made by Telstra’s Warren today, which will be backed by Optus’ David Epstein tomorrow.

They have a point.