Phone service under scrutiny

Submissions close November 25 on the issue of whether customers with different mobile providers are able to use their phones in areas not covered by their provider.

Vodafone chief strategy officer and corporate affairs director Dan Lloyd said, through working across 26 countries within the company, he found infrastructure sharing was one of the most common ways to deal with the issue of regional coverage.

“If it’s not economic for one network, it is not likely to have two or three covering an area,” he said.

The discussion paper states Telstra as the sole provider for more than 1 million kilometres of Australia – an area that has just 0.8 per cent of the Australian population.

While in Adelaide recently, Telstra chief executive officer Andy Penn told Stock Journal allowing other networks access to towers would remove the economic imperative for the company to expand into new areas.

Mr Lloyd disputes this, saying domestic roaming was already in place in the United States, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand.

“Overseas examples show that investment actually lifts in the years after roaming is introduced,” he said.

“Almost every western economy with a large area and low population density has mandated roaming.”

Mr Lloyd said the rent paid to towers by other networks could actually assist in subsidising the expansion.

Telstra SA area general manager Mark Bolton disputed that.

“Under regulated roaming, other competitors may only have to pay a tiny amount to use a network we have spent billions of dollars building across many years,” he said. “In addition, the cost for maintenance and future infrastructure upgrades would still remain with the original infrastructure owner. This would give companies taking advantage of regulated roaming an even bigger, unfair advantage.”

Mr Bolton said there was already an existing option for other network providers to access larger coverage through co-location – using competitors’ base stations to host their own equipment.

Mr Lloyd said this was the least efficient form of infrastructure sharing and, while theoretically possible, was often hindered by issues such as towers not able to fit the physical reality of multiple equipment.

Mr Lloyd said the main argument for the ACCC to consider was how fair the competition was to the consumer.

An Optus spokesperson said with the challenges of multiple carriers serving sparsely populated areas, the company was in favour of policy initiatives such as co-location through the federal government’s Mobile Black Spot Program.

“The declaration of roaming could risk undermining incentives for continued competitive investment unintentionally in regional areas,” the spokesperson said.

The National Farmers’ Federation is supportive of the inquiry, with president Brett Finlay saying it was common for rural and regional Australians to endure substandard connectivity.

“Regional customers are being stuck with higher phone and internet bills than those in metropolitan areas and competition is part of the remedy,” he said.

The SA Country Women’s Association is making a submission in opposition to domestic roaming, concerned it would result in a loss of investment.