This report assesses the effects of mobile termination regulation on consumer benefits and total surplus relating to the mobile market. Key to this analysis is defining the relevant factual and counterfactual outcomes – that is, what would happen with and without regulation, respectively.

Telstra’s Next G mobile network is a third-generation digital mobile network that can achieve very high data transfer speeds (for a mobile network) of up to 21 Mbps burst speed. A technology called High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) makes the Next G network considerably faster than regular third-generation networks. The Next G network has been described as the world’s fastest cellular network. It covers 99% of the Australian population.
On behalf of Telstra, Concept Economics undertook a study of the productivity benefits of the Next G network.

While there are at least seven full facility-based broadband competitors, competitive facility-based fixed line investments appear to be declining in favour of use of Telstra’s network. It also appears that no carrier is presently willing to make significant fixed broadband investments without substantial regulatory commitments and protections relative to those currently available.

Few issues have been as controversial in Australia as the setting of access prices in telecommunications. This paper provides a survey of the Australian experience in that regard.

Few issues have been as controversial in recent years as telecommunications. The widely publicised dispute between Telstra and the previous government received almost daily coverage in the media; with the recent change of government, the future of Australia’s telecommunications policy is under close scrutiny.

Telecommunications: Competition Regulation and Communication via the Internet

The issue of broadband internet access is an important one for public policy makers in Australia and elsewhere.

In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra, Henry Ergas explored the benefits and ways of pursuing a free trade agreement between the United States and Australia.

New Part XIB of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) (the TPA) gives the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) new powers to control anti-competitive conduct by carriers and carriage service providers. In using these powers, and specifically when issuing a Competition Notice1 or making a tariff filing direction, the ACCC will have to form a view about the telecommunications markets in which these industry participants operate.

Normatively, regulation can be viewed as an implicit or explicit contract between the regulatory authority, consumers and the regulated supplier(s) The essence of this contract is that the authority, acting as a consumer agent, commits to setting prices on a basis which recoups the long-run costs of efficient supply, where efficient supply is defined with reference to that which would prevail were the market at issue contestable.