The nation’s largest telco Telstra has claimed in a submission to the competition regulator that it can’t deploy naked DSL broadband services to customers and other ISPs as doing so would require it to undertake significant development of its IT systems, which require a phone line to be connected before broadband can be provided.
A number of Telstra’s major rivals, such as iiNet and TPG, have sold so-called naked DSL
services, where ADSL broadband is provided to customers without the requirements of a bundled traditional PSTN telephone line, for half a decade. iiNet, for example, first launched naked DSL to customers in November 2007, and had 131,000 customers using the service in June last year. Many of iiNet’s customers bundle cheap IP telephony services with its naked DSL platform. However, Telstra has consistently declined to provide the service to customers, preferring instead to sell bundled services including monthly traditional PSTN line rental plans, which are typically more expensive than IP telephony options.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is currently examining the case for stronger regulation of the way in which Telstra provides wholesale ADSL services to retail ISPs such as iiNet, TPG and Optus. In a submission (PDF) to that process released last week (and first reported by iTNews), Telstra argued that the ACCC should not force is to provide new services such as a wholesale version of naked DSL — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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