Big wins in broadband battle

Would-be commercial rivals to the National Broadband Network have suffered a triple blow in their efforts to preempt the roll-out of the NBN by hooking up high rise apartment blocks to high speed internet services.

The federal government has capped the retail charges of cable internet service providers (ISPs) who were hoping to beat the NBN to high value apartment blocks. And they will be forced to separate their wholesale and retail arms, meaning they can’t lock rival service providers out of buildings that they have already cabled.

Meanwhile strata lawyers claim they have found ways of stopping broadband cable companies who were forcing apartment blocks to accept their high-speed cables, using legislation originally intended to help spread the infrastructure for mobile phones.

And further clouding the picture for high-speed broadband retailers is the NBN’s $11bn purchase of Telstra’s copper wire infrastructure, giving the national network another set of connection options.

New rules and the price cap, announced last week as part of the government’s response to a review of NBN, will curb private sector moves to cherry pick high-value, high-rise inner-city apartment buildings.

High-speed internet service providers have been using provisions in the Telecommunications Act to send out Land Access Advisory Notices (LAANs to apartment blocks’ owners corporations effectively telling them they are coming to their building whether they like it or not.

Owners corporations representing tens of thousands of apartments have already allegedly taken the notice at face value and allowed companies like Pipe Networks, the infrastructure arm of main player TPG, to install their equipment. Once it is installed, however, there is no point in other providers, including NBN, connecting theirs because of signal interference.

Earlier this year NBN CEO Bill Morrow told a Senate Committee said the company would be forced to roll out fibre directly to apartments to bypass fibre to the building (FTTB) equipment that companies like TPG had already installed, as connecting FTTB equipment from two different providers was “well known” to cause interference problems.

He added that the provision of NBN services to individual apartments in buildings already cabled by other firms would then be a question of commercial viability.

Now consumer advocates hope the “land grab” of high rise premises will be a lot less attractive under the new restrictions that come into effect on January 1.  Internet service providers will be forced to split their retail and wholesale businesses and operate them at arm’s length and they will be allowed to charge no more than $27 a month to other retail providers through their wholesale businesses.

Meanwhile strata lawyers claim they have found a way of locking Pipe and other cable companies out of strata buildings completely.

Tom Bacon of Strata Title Lawyers has beaten back efforts by Pipe to install their service in a number of buildings in Melbourne, ignoring objections from the blocks’ owners’ corporations (body corporate).

“I acted for five buildings in Docklands, St Kilda and Southbank who were served with LAANs by TPG in June this year,” says Bacon. “This was part of a wider push by TPG to acquire new customers by targeting apartment buildings with large numbers of residential units.

“This was also to beat the NBN Network from acquiring these clients as its construction of the telecommunications equipment was due to commence shortly thereafter.”

Bacon claims NBN’s policy is that once they become aware that a rival service provider has already served a Notice (the LAAN) to install its infrastructure, then there is no point in the NBN installing its own system, so it moves on and leaves the building stuck with the single service provider.

“All five of the buildings that I acted for objected to the LAAN being served on them by TPG,” says Bacon. “And, once the Ombudsman’s name was mentioned, the lawyers acting for PIPE Networks and TPG went quiet.

“There is only a set time period to object to the LAAN otherwise no further objections can be made.  However, it’s not too late to challenge PIPE Networks and TPG via the Ombudsman’s office even if a building has been served with a LAAN.”

Bacon’s opinion is echoed by leading Sydney strata lawyer Stephen Goddard, representing a high-rise in Roseberry, Sydney, which has beaten back efforts by Pipe to install their service regardless of objections from the block’s owners’ corporation (body corporate).

Goddard claims that while high-speed cable providers are allowed to take their cable to the basement of a building, they have no right to connect to the existing wiring without owners corporation permission because, by effectively blocking other providers, an ISP was degrading the common property by turning it from multi-use infrastructure into a single-user connection.

ISP exclusivity by default had already led NSW Fair Trading Minister Mathew Mason-Cox to issue a warning to owners corporations not to sign agreements with high speed ISPs that might force owners and tenants to cancel existing contracts and sign up with that ISP.

“The main thing to remember is that TPG and similar ISPs are retail providers, whereas the NBN is a wholesaler,” Goddard told Domain.  “So while high speed internet may be a very good thing, this is really about having little or no say in your provider compared to having unlimited choice.”

After Domain raised the issue with Pipe, who declined to comment, Goddard received an email from lawyer Simone Dejun, acting for Pipe and TPG, saying they were not pursuing their demand to be allowed access to the building he represents in Rothschild Avenue, Roseberry.