Telecommunications services and regulation in Australia have undergone significant and continuing change, particularly in the past five years. That change promises to continue if not accelerate as new technologies create new services and make the delivery of established services possible in new ways. Service will also be delivered by a variety of new players or by carriers with changed corporate focus or structure.
Regulation of telecommunications in Australia will also change. The government, in announcing increased competition and the introduction of a second general carrier, forecast that the regulatory structure, particularly the carrier duopoly, would be reviewed by 1997. Since then, the government has announced other reviews which will impact on telecommunications structures and policy.
The overall aim of this project is to examine telecommunications policy and structures in the light of the announced reviews, particularly the telecommunications policy review, with particular focus on how consumer issues will be addressed in a changing telecommunications environment. Specifically, the project will:
This paper, the first of the project, will review the major structural shift from when Telecom was both regulator and monopoly service provider, to the current carrier duopoly, with competition in a range of telecommunications services. The paper will review the pressures behind the changes, the government's policy response and the new structures embodied in legislation.
Subsequent papers in the project will highlight the issues arising from new telecommunications structures and policy, examine in detail how consumer issues can be addressed in a changing telecommunications environment.