Public inquiry to vary the final access determination for the superfast broadband access service

ACCAN recently submitted to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)’s consultation on the ‘Public inquiry to vary the final access determination for the superfast broadband access service’.

This submission examines the need to vary the existing Superfast Broadband Access Service (SBAS) determination, given the binding rules of conduct (BROC) that were issued to address the anticompetitive behaviours of Uniti Group in 2024.

ACCAN’s submission is supportive of the measures in the BROC and recommends that the ACCC integrate those measures into the final access determination to prevent similar anticompetitive measures being taken in the future.

The submission reiterates ACCAN’s historical position that benchmarking SBAS pricing against National Broadband Network (NBN) pricing is appropriate, but that it should account for NBN pricing being inclusive of paying the Regional Broadband Scheme (RBS) levy. In cases where access providers are exempt from paying the RBS levy, there should be a lower alternative benchmarking rate that accounts for this.

In this submission ACCAN recommends that:

• The current SBAS access determination be varied to incorporate the BROC to promote market fairness.

• Additional safeguards be introduced to ensure transparency, reliability and accountability from SBAS providers.

• All SBAS providers be subject to regulated access terms.

• SBAS pricing continue to be benchmarked to NBN pricing.

• The benchmarked rate should account for and be reduced in cases where an access provider is exempt from the RBS levy.