Responses to draft Determination

Responses to draft Determination

The draft model terms on Billing and Notifications was generally well received. However, one party in particular had some fundamental problems, as well as some suggested additions, to the proposed model clauses. Accordingly, the Commission has made a number of revisions to the principles and clauses in Section A of Part 2.

Generally speaking, the above party submitted that this was a key area where the proposed clauses had the potential to adversely impact existing industry arrangements to the detriment of the LTIE. It felt that billing and billing disputes were iterative process driven issues involving high volume of transactions and therefore existing and future ACIF codes and guidelines were the most practical and effective approach rather than through the use of model terms. This party felt that the substantial alteration to existing timeframes might require an overhaul of billing systems and infrastructure, thus impacting on the cost of supplying the core services.

This party also felt that the model terms failed to adequately take account of service based distinctions between resale and interconnection services and were therefore inappropriate.

The party also felt that there had been a significantly reduced timeframes for it and excessive periods for access seekers which was unreasonable and likely to increase the number and frequency of billing disputes contrary to the LTIE and legitimate business interests of the access provider.

The party also argued that the rebate clause in particular (see draft Determination model clause A.29), should be deleted as there was already a sufficient number of incentives on the party to discourage incorrect billing. It was considered economically inefficient and wholly unjustified and likely to be a penalty that was void as it was not a pre-estimate of an access seeker’s loss but a purely arbitrary figure. Further, the one sided nature of the clause was considered to be open to abuse by access seekers.

The party also submitted that while the general limitation of 6 months on backbilling seemed reasonable there was a need for an exception for services which were being billed for the first time and for certain international services where the access provider was dependent on overseas carriers for billing information.

Another party recommended that complex disputes needed longer time frames and therefore, there needed to be a provision to enable the extension of timeframes where the parties agreed, but with consent not to be unreasonably withheld.

It was submitted that where one party has caused a delay in resolution of a dispute, and the other party was prevented from backbilling a customer because of it, then the first party should be required to compensate the other party for the amount the other party was prevented from recovering from the customer because of the delay.