Commonwealth legislation

Trade Practices Act 1974 - Determination under section 152AQA - Pricing Principles for Integrated Services Digital Network

RepealedCTH

This Act has been repealed and is no longer in force. It is retained for historical reference.

Jurisdiction

Commonwealth

Collection

legislative instrument

Plain English Summary

3/10 complexity

What this is: Pricing rules set by the competition watchdog (ACCC) for specific telephone network services called ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)—digital phone lines used by businesses.

Who it affects: Telecom companies supplying or buying ISDN services, and ultimately businesses relying on these phone connections.

What it does:

Cost-based pricing: The default rule requires prices to equal TSLRIC (the genuine long-term cost of providing just that service, including a reasonable return on investment).
Benchmark fallback: If calculating exact costs is impractical, prices must instead match similar services sold in competitive markets.
Quality control: Any benchmark service must come from a competitive market (or already be cost-regulated) and have similar technical features to ISDN.

Why it matters: ISDN was critical business infrastructure often controlled by a single provider. These rules prevent monopoly rent-seeking while ensuring the network owner can recover efficient costs.

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Direct links to the current provisions in Trade Practices Act 1974 - Determination under section 152AQA - Pricing Principles for Integrated Services Digital Network.

Trade Practices Act 1974 - Determination under section 152AQA - Pricing Principles for Integrated Services Digital Network

TRADE PRACTICES ACT 1974

Determination under section 152AQA

Pricing principles for Integrated Services Digital Network

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) determines, pursuant to section 152AQA of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (the Act), that the principles specified in Schedule 1 are to apply to the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) Originating Service and the ISDN Terminating Service declared by the ACCC under section 152AL of the Act.

Note: For the effect of this determination, see subsection 152AQA(6) of the Act.

Made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on

4 June 2008

…….…………………………..

Graeme Julian Samuel

Chairman

SCHEDULE 1

Principles relating to the price of access to the ISDN Originating Service and the ISDN Terminating Service

Wherever it is reasonably practicable to do so, the price of the ISDN Originating Service and the ISDN Terminating Service should be set equal to the total service long run incremental cost (i.e. TSLRIC) of the service.
Where it is not reasonably practicable to set prices on the basis of TSLRIC, the price of the ISDN Originating Service and the ISDN Terminating Service should be set having regard to the price of an appropriate benchmark.
A service will be an appropriate benchmark where:

(a) it is supplied in a competitive market or it is subject to cost based regulation; and

(b) its physical attributes are comparable to the ISDN Originating Service or the ISDN Terminating Service in question.

Source text

Sourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.

1 Trade Practices Act 1974 - Determination under section 152AQA - Pricing Principles for Integrated Services Digital Network