Competitive Carriers Coalition takes the high ground on comms policy

The Competitive Carriers Coalition (CCC) has attempted to take the high ground releasing a 'statement of regulatory principles' ahead of what is shaping up to be very polarised pre-lection debate around the NBN and communications policy in general hoping it will engender "more policy debate and less political posturing." Good luck to it.

Releasing the principles an (anonymous as always) CCC spokesman said: "The CCC is greatly encouraged that there is a competition of ideas, not just political posturing. As we enter an election year, we want to continue to see more policy debate, less political posturing."

There will certainly be plenty of both. It's been evident of months that what passes for debate around the NBN between the two major political parties has much more do with posturing and point scoring than genuine policy debate.

The CCC hopes that its eight policy principles will contribute to a "policy and regulatory framework [that] is guided by principles and long term objectives." More than likely the end result will be misguided by political expediency, as usual.

It's also questionable whether the eight policy principles are indeed underlying principles or statements of CCC policy.

The CCC's preamble to its eight principles states: "The CCC believes that any policy to promote investment in and access to next generation fixed and mobile broadband networks, as well as the policy and regulatory environment in which public or private investment is made, must be derived from some fundamental principles."

Principle Number One is that "All policy must lead to the development of an industry structure that is conducive to maximising competition."

Surely that in itself is a policy statement. While many might disagree, it would be a valid policy, as the Australian Government had from 1988 to 1997, of limited competition.

Principle 4 is that "Wholesale communications markets are national by nature, and thus regulation and policy must be national." Does this mean homogeneous, with uniform wholesale pricing? Certainly the market and the technologies being used to deliver the NBN are far from uniform.

Principle Number Five is that "Policy should avoid locking-in legacy technology that inhibits competition or which leads to the future reintegration of retail businesses with monopoly network elements.

Presumably that's a referenced to FTTN - which looms large in Coalition policy statements to date - versus FTTP. "Lock in" is of course a relative term, and while there are clearly many who disagree the Coalition's 'policy' of bringing better broadband faster to more people is a perfectly valid policy.

Most of the eight principles are couched in these very general terms. However the CCC gets very specific in Principle Number Eight, which states: "In locations where a return is not sufficient to support commercial infrastructure investment, policies to encourage investment should promote competition and open access. Policy must avoid subsidies that entrench the dominance of the major incumbent and improve its market position."

And if that was not specific enough, it adds for good measure: "Government funding should not subsidise the expansion of Telstra mobile network coverage without establishing open access arrangements and equivalence principles consistent with those being implemented in fixed line network regulation."

The CCC's views on communications policy and its preferred outcomes are pretty well known. It would have done better to restate these with convincing arguments and tossed them into the ring as its contribution to the inevitable pre-election bun fight than to couch them has principles that are somehow above debate.

This article first appeared on iTWire, Australia's leading independent IT&T news and information source.