The ACCC has released the final report of its regional mobile infrastructure Inquiry, prompting the government to announce a scoping study into requiring carriers to support emergency roaming during natural disasters.
The report [pdf] was handed to the government on June 30, and made recommendations substantially similar to those made in the ACCC’s preliminary report issued in April [pdf].
The ACCC said facilities access regulation should be reviewed, with a view to creating a facilities access code to encourage greater sharing of mobile towers.
Telstra and Optus are cited in the report as supporting emergency roaming arrangements.
In responding to the report, the government has singled out temporary roaming as its first action item.
In a statement, minister for communications Michelle Rowland and minister for emergency management Murray Watt supported the proposal.
The scoping study would need to address issues such as technical and commercial issues, and the risk of congestion on whichever carrier’s network had to accept an influx of roaming traffic in a disaster.
The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts (DITRDCA) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will work with carriers on the study, with a report due by March 2024.
Tower regulation obsolete, regulator says
In the report, the ACCC said the carriers’ sale of their mobile infrastructure means the facilities access code it administers is no longer “fit for purpose”.
That’s because the code covers the three carriers, not the tower owners – Indara, which now operates towers acquired from Optus; Wavecomm (TPG), and Telstra’s Amplitel subsidiary.
ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said the arrangements “created a strong bilateral contractual relationship between the old owner and the new owner, which can create restrictions and impact whether infrastructure sharing options are pursued.”
Other issues raised in the report include Telstra’s ongoing regional advantage as a barrier to improving services away from metropolitan areas; and service quality issues in regional Australia.