Archive for July, 2010
Australia – Regulator has fined Telstra AUD 18.5M for blocking competitors from use of local exchanges
July 31st, 2010 | 
Author: [business week] Australia’s largest telephone company was fined 18.5 million Australian dollars ($16.6 million) Wednesday for blocking broadband Internet competitors from using its local exchanges.
Telstra was taken to court by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for breaches that occurred between January 2006 and February 2008.
Once a government owned monopoly, the company controls Australia’s only nationwide copper wire telephone network. In many areas, competitors need to install equipment in Telstra’s telephone exchanges to be able to offer Internet services that piggyback on the copper wires.
The corporate watchdog had demanded a AU$40 million fine. But Justice John Middleton of the Federal Court of Australia ruled that Telstra had not been deliberately anticompetitive.
He said those employees who denied the access were either not properly trained about access obligations or failed to comply with their training.
“In most cases Telstra staff did not understand their responsibilities or roles within Telstra,” Middleton said. “I am not satisfied, however, that Telstra has demonstrated any remorse, nor that it appreciates the seriousness of its conduct.”
Telstra admitted to 27 breaches of the Telecommunications Act during the court case.
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Australia – Internet ranking is 50th fastest globally, NZ was 42nd
[it news] Akamai’s latest State of the Internet was a shot in the arm for supporters of the National Broadband Network, reporting that Australia was in the bottom half of nations in the Asia-Pacific for broadband speeds and slower than neighbour New Zealand.
The content-distribution service Akamai rated Australia, with an average connection speed of 2.6Mbps at 50th fastest broadband nation in the world; New Zealand with an average speed of 2.9Mbps was 42nd.
Russia was only slightly slower than Australia, recording an average speed of 2.1Mbps.
But Akamai, the company known for data centres that shunted internet traffic for suchqueen high-profile events as the World Cup and Mars Pathfinder missions, awarded Australia most-improved in the region with average broadband speeds lifting 19 percent in the quarter while most countries’ performances were static or diminished.
South Korea was again the fastest on the planet with an average and maximum speeds of 12Mbps and 32.7Mbps, respectively.
It was followed by Hong Kong with an average speed of 9Mbps and Japan (7.8Mbps). The US was 16th globally with average speeds of 4.7Mbps.
India – Govt has amended licences on security grounds to require full details of all network equipment
[business standard] In view of national security concerns, the Directorate of Telecommunications (DoT) has made it mandatory for equipment suppliers to share design, development and supply chain details, besides allowing inspection of their manufacturing facility by the Indian government or concerned certification agencies.
According to the amendments to the telecom licence agreement — the unified access service license (UASL) — the equipment providers have to give access to their hardware and software for examination at the time of procurement of equipment. The process would be repeated every year and an inspection would be carried out every two years.
The software code would be kept in the escrow account in an encrypted form and would be used in case of security emergency.
A penalty of 100 per cent of the contract value would be levied by telecom equipment supplier in case malware/spyware is found in the equipment. Operators would also have to pay a fine of Rs 50 crore for every purchase of equipment in case there is a security breach.
The licensee will also work towards a phased plan to take over the maintenance of the equipment locally — entirely by Indian engineers and dependence on foreign engineers will be minimum or almost nil within a period of two years.
DoT in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs had been working on the amendment to the licence to address security concerns. It had accepted feedback from the industry and all stakeholders.
DoT had in December, last year made it mandatory for telecom service providers to seek security clearance before placing an order for telecom equipment. Despite this, many orders for Chinese equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE have been pending with the department since the last six months.
According to the amendments, telecom service providers will also have to form an organisational policy on security and management of their network. The policy will have to be submitted to the government within 30 working days from the date of the amendment to the UASL licence conditions.
India – Govt is objecting on security grounds to Blackberry e-mail services
[the hindu] Research In Motion, the manufacturers of the BlackBerry phones, has approached the Government seeking a meeting to address security concerns linked to the device.
In a letter to the Department of Telecom, the Canada-based smart phone maker said, “We would like to make an urgent meeting with you in order to explain and clarify the standard manner in which data travels or is transmitted when a Blackberry device is used by a consumer. In simple terms it is no different from how standard data packets currently travel over the network.”
Security agencies had raised concerns about Blackberry devices, Skype services and Gmail because data being transmitted through these networks are highly encrypted. This does not allow the security agencies to snoop into these networks.
The security agencies had asked the Department of Telecom to ask these companies to either ensure that data going through their networks be made available to security agencies in a readable format or face a ban from offering services in India.
But so far, DoT has not directly approached any of these companies. It had earlier asked the Cellular Operators’Association of India (COAI) to get RIM for a meeting.
But when COAI approached RIM, the latter took a view that it will go for a meeting only after getting a direct invitation from DoT.
The basic problem is that the data services being offered by RIM are highly encrypted because of which Indian security agencies are finding it difficult to keep a watch over the content being transmitted through the device.
Similar concerns were raised against Blackberry devices two years ago but the issue was put on the backburner.
UK – Regulator has rejected BT’s plan to include pension fund costs in wholesale prices
[telegraph] Ofcom, the communications regulator, on Friday rejected BT’s plan to put up the prices it charges rivals to use its nationwide network in order to help drag its pension fund out of the red.
The regulator said there was no “compelling evidence” to justify allowing BT to increase the wholesale prices its Openreach unit charges BSkyB, Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) and TalkTalk.
BT had claimed that it should be able to ask its rivals to help fund extra pension contributions because its pensioners created the network that Sky, CWW and TalkTalk are piggy-backing on.
BT is pumping an extra £525m a year into its pension fund – the UK’s largest – in order to reduce the deficit.
In its preliminary ruling, which is unlikely to be changed, Ofcom said allowing BT to recoup the cost of the extra pension payments could unfairly force up the prices paid by businesses and consumers.
Ofcom said any change to the current status quo, in which it takes into account BT’s pension costs but not the extra payments, “could lead to fluctuations in wholesale prices which… would potentially, lead to those prices being set at levels which do not accurately reflect the relevant underlying costs”.
A source close to BT said the company only expected to collect “tens of millions” of extra cash from the increased price so there would be no “material impact” on its cashflow.
However, John Ralfe, an independent pensions expert hired by BT’s rivals to analyse its pension, said: “BT would have been hoping that the Ofcom ruling would be a ‘magic bullet’ that would mean they could pass on about a third of their deficit to consumers. That is not going to happen now and it is bad news for BT.”
TalkTalk and CWW which viciously attacked BT’s proposals in March welcomed Ofcom’s ruling.
A TalkTalk spokesman said: “Ofcom has rightly recognised that consumers should not bear this surcharge.”
Earlier this year CWW said: “BT’s efforts to persuade Ofcom that its deficit is in some way an act of God is not supported by the facts.”
CWW added that there was “overwhelming” evidence that “BT has been the sole architect of the entire deficit” and claimed that “BT paid its shareholders higher dividends “at the expense of adequately funding its pension scheme”.
BT shares slipped 0.3 to 140.7p.
Ofcom will make a final ruling later this year.
BT fails in bid to make rivals plug its £9bn pension deficit
