Professor Martin Cave, an expert in access regulation from the University of Warwick in the UK, was in Australia last week to support a submission by Telstra calling for SingTel Optus to be denied access to Telstra's copper loops where Singtel Optus has its own cable to network.

Professor Cave said consumer benefit should be the focus of regulation, and consumers get better services and prices if there is true end-to-end infrastructure competition. He said the aim of regulators should be to encourage telecommunications competitors to invest in their own networks, even if this means denying them cheaper regulated access to the networks of incumbent operators like Telstra.

He said that Optus has a cable network which could be a more effective competitor to Telstra, but SingTel Optus treats only around two-thirds of the potential customers in the network's footprint as "serviceable". It is cheaper and easier for SingTel Optus to use Telstra's copper loops in many areas where both networks operate.

In this Now We Are Talking TV interview, Professor Cave also says that regulators should take a different approach to the treatment of next generation networks in order to encourage the massive investment needed, and that structural separation is likely to discourage investment.

Video format: Flash video - 14.85MB
Running time: 10 min. 10sec.