Here are a few I have come across the last week or so. Note: Each link is followed by a title and a few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
General Comment
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Lots of NBN news this week with the NBN announcing financial results and continuing to make it very difficult for the retailers to deliver an excellent service due to their FTTN etc failures.
Otherwise we see the usual ADHA news as well a big private sector news of Medical Director and Medical Director.
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https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-hands-microsoft-digital-health-contract/
Govt hands Microsoft digital health contract
Denham
Sadler
National Affairs Editor
The contract, posted publicly this week and running from 16 June to 24 September, is worth more than $600,000.
The job did not go out for open tender, with the agency saying this was due to an “absence of competition for technical reasons”.
In response to questions from InnovationAus, a spokesperson for the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) declined to reveal what work the contract relates to, but confirmed it was signed through the government’s existing volume sourcing arrangement with Microsoft, inked by the Digital Transformation Agency.
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Telstra secures deal to buy GP software group MedicalDirector
Anthony Macdonald and Yolanda Redrup
Aug 8, 2021 – 2.39pm
Telecommunications bigwig Telstra is set to acquire Australian patient management software company MedicalDirector.
Sources said Telstra and MedicalDirector’s owner, private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners, signed a deal over the weekend after an auction run by investment bank Jefferies.
Telstra chief executive Andy Penn has said that Telstra Health is a long-term bet. He’s now helping the business considerably increase its footprint in the general practice sector.
The deal will see MedicalDirector join the telco’s Telstra Health unit, which provides IT and software services to health and aged care groups in Australia including government-run services and private providers.
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Telstra boosts digital health business with MedicalDirector swoop
August 9, 2021
Telco giant Telstra is set to scoop up software company MedicalDirector after reaching a deal with private equity owner Affinity Equity Partners.
The acquisition will see MedicalDirector, one of the nation’s largest patient management software companies, join Telstra’s growing health business at a time of booming demand for services.
The transaction was agreed over the weekend, according to sources, and comes after a lengthy sales process of the software company.
MedicalDirector was on and off the market through advisory firm Jefferies Australia from 2019. While the sale was paused through the worst of the Covid crisis, it began ramping up again around April, as revealed at the time by The Australian’s DataRoom column. In recent months, Telstra emerged as the favourite to win the race that is understood to have included at least one other interested party.
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Monday, 09 August 2021 09:47
Telstra Health to acquire MedicalDirector at $350 million by Q1 FY22
Telstra Health has inked a binding agreement to acquire GP clinical and practice management software company MedicalDirector for $350 million, in a deal Telstra says reflects continued growth, and strengthening of its existing presence in the UK.
Telstra Health board chair Brendon Riley says the acquisition of MedicalDirector was a key step to create a connected and improved digital health experience for all.
“MedicalDirector supports consultations by medical practitioners through a comprehensive patient medical record, including electronic prescriptions, options for virtual consultations, patient care plans, real time alerts about drug safety and drug interaction, and a range of other functionalities,” Riley says.
“Practice management is an important addition for Telstra Health in providing quality solutions and supporting them to deliver care. Telstra Health has transformed substantially over the past five years and this announcement reflects its continuing maturity as a business,” Riley adds. “It also reflects its continued growth into a global business, including strengthening our existing presence in the UK where MedicalDirector has been establishing itself in recent years.”
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-health-to-buy-medicaldirector-for-350m-568343
Telstra Health to buy MedicalDirector for $350m
By Ry Crozier on Aug 9, 2021 9:44AM
Practice management SaaS vendor changes hands.
Telstra Health will buy general practice management software maker MedicalDirector for $350 million.
The telco’s health arm is buying MedicalDirector from private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners, which paid $117 million for it in March 2016.
Board chair Brendon Riley said the purchase reflects Telstra Health’s “maturity as a business” and its ambitions to be a global player, given MedicalDirector also has a presence in the UK.
“GPs play a central role in connecting to every part of the health and aged care systems, and practice management is an incredibly important addition for Telstra Health in providing quality solutions and supporting them to deliver care,” Riley said in a statement.
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https://www.zdnet.com/article/telstra-health-to-pick-up-medicaldirector-for-au350m/
Telstra Health to pick up MedicalDirector for AU$350m
MedicalDirector will be the second business Telstra Health has acquired in less than a month.
By Aimee Chanthadavong | August 9, 2021 -- 06:38 GMT (16:38 AEST) | Topic: Cloud
Telstra Health has entered an acquisition deal, valued at AU$350 million, with medical practice management software firm MedicalDirector.
MedicalDirector is a cloud-based software provider owned by Affinity Equity Partners. Telstra Health claims the company currently supports approximately 23,000 medical practitioners and is used to deliver over 80 million consults a year through its solutions, including electronic health records, patient and practice management, billing, scheduling, and care coordination.
The Telstra subsidiary, which has previously come under fire for its troubled Australian cervical and bowel cancer screening registers project, said the acquisition would support the company's long-term growth strategy in the health and aged care sectors.
"Patient care journeys move back and forth across home, clinics, hospitals, aged-care, and pharmacies. This acquisition helps realise our vision to connect and coordinate across the continuum of care, enabling smoother experiences for those who need it and provide it," Telstra Health managing director Mary Foley said.
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Telstra stumps up $350m to fill ‘missing piece’ in health portfolio
By Emma Koehn
August 9, 2021 — 1.10pm
Telstra’s health investment arm has put itself squarely on the radar of Australia’s GP clinics after closing a $350 million takeover of clinic management software company MedicalDirector.
Board chair of Telstra Health, Brendon Riley, said the telco’s investment arm was involved in a range of health sectors - from aged care to pharmacies - but the MedicalDirector purchase unlocked a key new market.
“There’s [been] one really important piece of that ecosystem missing, and that’s GPs,” he said.
Telstra confirmed on Monday it was the successful bidder for MedicalDirector, which has previously been owned by ASX-listed Primary Healthcare (now known as Healius), and was bought by Affinity Equity Partners in 2016.
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This start-up is solving the problem of recruiting volunteers for medical trials
10:44AM July 30, 2021
For health entrepreneur Manuri Gunawardena it was a real-world experience that sparked the idea for her digital platform, HealthMatch.
Sydney-based Gunawardena, 28, was working on a dendritic cell brain cancer immunotherapy vaccine trial at Duke University when she decided to create a platform that matches patients, who are desperate to join potentially lifesaving trials, and researchers, looking for ideal participants.
“We were trying to find patients for this study, it is one of those cancers where you have about 15 months to live and, in 50 years, there hasn’t been any progress in treatments available and people are pretty keen to try new treatments,” she says.
“We just got two patients at a hotel close to our lab, and I thought that was pretty concerning as there are patients who are willing to fly all over the world to try new trials.”
Realising that she had stumbled on a problem for researchers all over the world, with an estimated 80 per cent of trials failing to recruit, Gunawardena decided she wanted to do something to make vital information about medical trials more accessible.
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https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/further-extension-of-electronic-prescription-subsi
Further extension of electronic prescription subsidy
The Department of Health will support general practices to prescribe via SMS until at least 30 June 2022.
10 Aug 2021
The number of electronic prescriptions being used in
Australia is increasing
by around 500,000 every week, and as of July 2021, more
than 12 million original and repeat prescriptions have been issued.
To date, this growth has been supported by a Federal Government subsidy that
has allowed general practices to prescribe via SMS without incurring additional
costs.
However, there were concerns about the future of electronic prescribing should
the subsidy end, which is why RACGP Expert Committee – Practice Technology and
Management (REC–PTM) representative Dr David Adam has welcomed its extension
until at least 30 June 2022.
‘The subsidy provides more certainty for practice owners and practitioners and
will help to consolidate electronic prescribing as a core part of practice,’ he
told newsGP.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/radiotherapy-2021-if-you-can-track-it-you-can-treat-it/
9 August 2021
Radiotherapy 2021: if you can track it, you can treat it
Clinical Hospital Robotics Technology
Advances in medical technology have helped make 2021 “the most exciting time” in radiotherapy, according to Perth-based oncologist Professor David Joseph.
Speaking at the Medical Oncology Group of Australia (MOGA) 2021 scientific meeting session on innovation, Professor Joseph said treatment innovations such as intensity modulation radiotherapy (IMRT), CyberKnife and FLASH radiotherapy all offer a glimpse into the future of the field.
Where conventional external beam radiation therapy uses a uniform field of beams, IMRT utilises non-uniform beams, sparing the normal tissue around a cancer as opposed to simply shielding it.
“[IMRT] beams vary across the field, and we utilise a system called ‘inverse planning’ where we specify where we don’t want to treat, so we can avoid critical structures,” Professor Joseph said.
“The aim is to get a higher degree of conformality with normal tissue sparing, and you can actually shape the beam – the next steps were to alter the beam even more with multi-leaf collimators, so you can vary it during actual treatment.”
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CoVaxApp enabled over 140,000 COVID-19 vaccination bookings in Victoria's Southwest and Geelong region
Adam Ang | 10 Aug 2021
Before Victoria launched a state-wide online vaccine booking platform in late July, Geelong-based Barwon Health worked with Melbourne-based IT company Circle T to develop CovaxApp, a vaccine booking and administration tool that supported the early vaccination drive in the state's Southwest and Geelong region.
WHY IT MATTERS
According to Barwon Health's media release, the CoVaxApp platform supported on-site vaccination processes, reporting of patient outcomes and online bookings. The system had enabled the administration of over 140,000 COVID-19 vaccines and during peak times, it was able to assist in inoculating 3,000 persons daily.
THE LARGER TREND
Victoria is currently under a seven-day lockdown following a fresh COVID-19 outbreak due to the spread of the Delta variant.
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Director-General orders review into trouble-plagued $35m FNQ e-healthsoftware
The Cairns Post
THE Director-General of Queensland Health has ordered a review into atrouble-plagued $35 million e-health record developed exclusively for the Far ...
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Thursday, 12 August 2021 23:38
New Withings ScanWatch Rose Gold keeps you healthy while looking good
French health-tech manufacturer Withings continues to impress with its range of clinically validated smart devices that track your vital statistics - and with style too, as evidenced by the latest Rose Gold model ScanWatch to hit our shores.
If you've not heard of Withings there's no doubt you'll be hearing about them more and more. The company is headquartered in France, manufacturing and distributing innovative connected medical devices worldwide. Withings - pronounced “WITH-things” has pioneered digital health, releasing the world’s first Wi-Fi scale in 2009, an FDA-approved blood pressure monitor, a smart sleep tracking system, a smart thermos, and the ScanWatch range of activity tracking watches.
The ScanWatch is Withings' most advanced hybrid smartwatch and was the first smartwatch available in Australia that was clinically validated with ECG technology. It’s now available in a brand new colour, with the new rose gold model hitting Australia’s shores.
iTWire has been using the ScanWatch for ourselves. As you'd expect, it tells the time but it is so much more. It is clinically validated for medical accuracy and tracks heart rate, irregular or high or low heartbeats, breathing disturbances, electrocardiogram, oxygen saturation, steps, and distance walked - yes, even in COVID-19 lockdown you can be spurred on to keep fit, metabolic calories and total calories expenditure, automatically detected running duration and distance, automatically detected swimming duration and calories burned, sleep interruptions, deep and light sleep phases, and elevation both in metres and floors.
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ACT and NSW consumers can now choose pathology lab that can upload their results to My Health Record
· 9 Aug 2021 8:06 am AEST
Australian Digital Health Agency
Healius Pathology has expanded its delivery of results to My Health Record to consumers in ACT and New South Wales as well as those in Victoria and South Australia.
Matthew Brumby, General Manager of Laverty Pathology, said that reports are now being shared in My Health Record for patients with pathology tests processed by a Laverty Pathology Laboratory in the ACT or NSW, or from Kossard Dermatopathologists.
“Tests conducted for inpatients by Laverty Pathology at Port Macquarie Hospital will be shared with My Health Record later this year,” Mr Brumby said.
There are more than 700 Laverty Pathology collection centres throughout NSW and the ACT.
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https://www.miragenews.com/eprescription-sms-subsidy-extension-to-30-june-612278/
12 Aug 2021 12:06 pm AEST
EPrescription SMS Subsidy Extension to 30
June 2022
Australian Medical Association
GPs should be aware that the ePrescription SMS subsidy has been extended to 30 June 2022.
This extension comes after ongoing review of the Boston Consulting Group consultation, to which the AMA made a submission in May 2021. The AMA has been calling on the Department of Health and the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) to develop long term solutions to avoid these SMS costs being passed onto prescribers.
The Department of Health is now considering the outcomes of this work and intends to engage in further consultation across the health sector.
It should be noted that SMS costs are specific to the provision of electronic prescription tokens to patients on their mobile phone. Alternatives exist for prescribers and dispensers to send electronic prescriptions to patients via email or through mobile applications that do not incur these SMS costs.
Now that the Active Script List is expanding in its availability to consumers across Australia, more health professionals and consumers will also be able to use this token management solution that will not incur the SMS charges. Innovations across the digital landscape will offer other alternatives as more digital health initiatives become a reality over time.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/e-scripts-bring-healthcare-into-the-21st-century/
9 August 2021
E-scripts bring healthcare into the 21st century
After almost 10 years in the works, electronic prescriptions couldn’t have been signed into law at a better time.
Officially approved in October 2019, more than 12 million e-scripts have been issued over the course of the pandemic.
“Had we not had digital prescription tokens, whenever a patient had a telehealth consultation and needed medication, the doctor would have had to post the prescription or someone would have had to go into the pharmacy,” MediSecure CEO Paul Frosdick told Wild Health.
As one of two Australian software vendors that run a prescription exchange service – the other being eRx – MediSecure’s core business is essentially ensuring that data sharing between primary care and pharmacy is smooth and secure.
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Telstra CEO has NBN Co chief's ear on underperforming FTTN issues
By Ry Crozier on Aug 12, 2021 5:19PM
Analysis: But will it resolve historical issues of who foots the bill?
Telstra CEO Andrew Penn says he has the ear of his counterpart at NBN Co Stephen Rue over long-running issues around selling fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) services, though it’s unclear if that will lead NBN Co to pay for past mistakes.
Australia’s competition watchdog launched proceedings against Telstra, Optus and TPG on Monday, alleging they had breached court-enforceable undertakings to make things right with some FTTN customers.
The issues date back to 2017 onwards when many retail service providers (RSPs) got into trouble for signing customers up to plans that their NBN connections were incapable of delivering.
As iTnews reported at the time, RSPs receive only estimated speed information from NBN Co for new connections.
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https://www.itwire.com/telecoms-and-nbn/nbn-co-delivers-revenue-and-ebitda-growth.html
Wednesday, 11 August 2021 16:07
NBN Co delivers revenue and EBITDA growth
NBN Co generated total revenue of $4.6 billion in FY21, an increase of 21% year-on-year. Driving the revenue was the addition of 933,000 residential and business premises that connected to the network in the last 12 months and a total of 8.2 million premises connected to the network at 30 June 2021.
The company generated Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) of $1.35 billion in the 12 months to 30 June 2021. The outcome was based on revenue growth and a reduction in subscriber payments, resulting in a $2 billion improvement on FY20 EBITDA. NBN Co’s subscriber payments to Telstra and Optus halved in the 12 months to 30 June, decreasing from $2. 4 billion in FY20 to $1.2 billion in FY21.
NBN said, the company’s strong financial results and predicable, sustainable cashflow creates a solid platform that enables the company to continue to progress and accelerate its network investment plan for the benefit of customers.
NBN says that customer demand for the higher speed tiers remained strong throughout FY21 with 75% of customers on retail plans based on wholesale download speed tiers of 50 Mbps and above at 30 June1. The company saw a positive market response to its Focus on Fast campaign, which launched on 1 February 2021 to support retailers and encourage customers to upgrade to higher speed tiers.
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Wednesday, 11 August 2021 09:36
The ACCC - Telstra, Optus and TPG allegedly misled consumers over NBN maximum speeds
The ACCC said it has instituted separate proceedings in the Federal Court against each of Telstra, Optus, and TPG for making alleged false or misleading representations in their promotions of some 50Mbps and 100Mbps NBN plans, in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.
The ACCC alleges that the companies made representations to some consumers on Fibre to the Node (FTTN) connections that they would test the maximum speed of their connections, notify the impacted consumer of their maximum speed if their line was underperforming, and offer them remedies if the maximum speed was below their plan’s stated speed, but failed to do so for many customers.
The ACCC also alleged Telstra, Optus and TPG wrongly accepted payments from certain customers for NBN plans when they were not provided with the promised speeds.
“Telstra, Optus and TPG each promised to tell consumers within a specific or reasonable timeframe if the speed they were paying for could not be reached on their connection. They also promised to offer them a cheaper plan with a refund if that was the case. Instead, we allege, they failed to do these things, and as a result many consumers paid more for their NBN plans than they needed to,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said.
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Wednesday, 11 August 2021 09:06
NBN Co creates 44 new NBN Business Fibre Zones, offers wholesale discounts on business NBN Enterprise Ethernet services
NBN Co announced the creation of 44 new NBN Business Fibre Zones to deliver premium business-grade fibre to an additional 60,000 eligible businesses premises across Australia, on demand, with no charge for the design and construction of fibre to the premises when they order a premium business NBN Enterprise Ethernet service.
The new NBN Business Fibre Zones will be available for eligible businesses in these new locations from 1 September 2021. NBN said, if the business customer signs up to a three-year plan from their internet retailer, NBN Co will not charge the retailer an up-front connection cost.
NBN says, it follows NBN Co’s announcement in September 2020 to create the first 240 NBN Business Fibre Zones, offering direct fibre connections and enabling access to business-grade broadband to a customer base of around 790,000 eligible business premises across Australia.
NBN advise that the 284 Business Fibre Zones will offer more than 850,000 business locations across Australia access to business NBN Enterprise Ethernet, the company’s fastest symmetrical wholesale product options with a 99.95 per cent network availability uptime target designed to help optimise network reliability and help reduce downtime for business.
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https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/nbn-turns-opaque-on-financial-disclosure-20210810-p58hjy
NBN turns opaque on financial disclosure
NBN is increasingly restricting the amount of financial information it shares with the public and this raises questions about the efficiency of its operating and capital expenditure.
Aug 11, 2021 – 12.00am
NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue has picked an interesting time to use a somewhat strange excuse for limiting the financial disclosures by the country’s government-owned wholesale broadband provider.
At NBN Co’s financial results briefing on Tuesday, Rue refused to discuss details about the government-owned company’s ballooning forward cash flows.
He says NBN Co’s obligations to international debt investors mean he is extremely limited in what he can say about forward-looking financial statements.
The company has raised $14 billion in debt from capital markets and banks, including $8 billion in the year to June 30. It plans to raise a total of $27.5 billion in debt by June 2024.
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Pandemic fuels need for NBN speed
August 10, 2021
NBN Co has narrowed its losses and lifted revenue by 21 per cent year-on-year to $4.6bn, as ongoing lockdowns continue to spur demand for ultra-fast broadband.
In its FY21 annual results the company posted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of $1.35bn in the 12 months to June 30, 2021 – up $2bn from a year earlier – as subscriber payments to Telstra and Optus tapered and 933,00 more customers were added to the network.
The pandemic has also prompted customers to choose higher speeds as NBN embarks on its “Home Ultrafast” upgrade program, with 17 per cent of residential customers on speeds of 100 Mbps and above, compared to 9 per cent a year earlier.
“This is a huge shift in the makeup of our speed tier mix, especially when you consider that just four years ago, the vast majority of customers, some 84 per cent, were on plans of 25Mbps and slower,” CEO Stephen Rue said. “Over that same period, the average monthly download amount per customer has increased from 207 gigabytes to more than 350 gigabytes a month.
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NBN Co to offer first 10,000 FTTN premises fibre upgrades by year end
By Ry Crozier on Aug 10, 2021 9:32AM
Eligibility criteria is still unclear.
NBN Co said it will initiate a “small volume launch” of on-demand upgrades to full fibre connections by the end of the year, encompassing “up to” 10,000 premises.
The upgrades are eventually to be offered in half of the company’s fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) footprint, under a near $3 billion program unveiled last year.
NBN Co announced in May that 1.1 million premises had so far been identified as potentially eligible for a free upgrade.
The company has also recently appointed construction partners to perform the upgrade works, which involve overbuilding the existing FTTN area with fibre, and then making last-mile fibre connections to premises “on-demand”, assuming those premises meet certain criteria.
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Stalled NBN Co revenue per user threatens budget
Lucas Baird Reporter
Updated Aug 10, 2021 – 9.50am, first published at 9.48am
NBN Co’s average residential revenue has stalled at $45 per user with just 24 more months left for the government-owned entity to lift this to its target of $49 to avoid a write-down that may cut into the federal budget bottom line.
The company, which built and now operates the national broadband network, said its revenue rose an impressive 21 per cent to $4.6 billion in the year ended June 30.
But this was followed a sharp rise in connected premises to 8.2 million, and the key residential average revenue per user (ARPU) metric used in the telecoms sector stuck fast at $45 – where it had been in financial year 2020 – despite more customers moving onto higher speed connections.
Big capacity discounts for retailers reselling the NBN on their network during the pandemic, which were in play for the first half of the 2021 period, also weighed on NBN Co’s results.
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Telstra’s back on track with Andy Penn holding the reins
6:01PM August 9, 2021
Not so long ago there were mutterings in the investment community about whether Andy Penn should call time in the top job at Telstra. Was his great 2018 transition strategy of T22 much more than a cost-cutting exercise? Where was the growth? Why was NBN in such a controlling position on pricing?
Ahead of its results on Thursday, Penn is in charge of a different looking beast, with short and long-term strategic options for growth. Ongoing negotiations between the government, Penn and Telstra chair John Mullen are now multi-layered and very nuanced, involving competition, technology, geopolitics, Covid-19 and of course, tens of billions of dollars. One of the most respected telecoms analysts in the country, New Street Research’s Ian Martin, has been following Telstra for the best part of 25 years.
“Telstra was staring down the barrel a year ago,” he said. “The T22 plan had been put on hold because of Covid, mobile roaming and fixed line costs were affected and you still had another year or more of NBN migration to go. The outlook was pretty uncertain.”
In June, a $2.8bn deal took the market by surprise. The Future Fund and two other giant investors took a 49 per cent stake in Telstra’s mobile tower portfolio. Martin says the high valuation, at 28 times EBITDA, is akin to US companies. Telstra, however, has managed to achieve a deal where it more or less retains control.
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Telstra, Optus, TPG to face court over underperforming FTTN services
By Ry Crozier on Aug 9, 2021 3:09PM
In a saga that stretches back to late 2017.
Telstra, Optus and TPG are to be brought before the federal court over allegations they mishandled fibre-to-the-node customers with underperforming services.
The court action, filed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), is the latest chapter in a saga that started back in late 2017.
The issue stems from inaccurate (or non-existent) line speed data provided by NBN Co at the point of sale, and then by retail providers not dropping all users back to attainable (but cheaper) tiers if they had signed up to a plan speed they could not achieve.
Both sides say they have improved their processes since 2017, in part as a result of system changes by NBN Co and specific court-enforceable undertakings agreed to by the RSPs. RSPs still argue that NBN Co's systems are inadequate or ineffective.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstra-predicts-fresh-arpu-hikes-from-nbn-cos-price-models-568358
Telstra predicts fresh ARPU hikes from NBN Co's price models
By Ry Crozier on Aug 9, 2021 12:55PM
But see little upside in them.
Telstra says new price models drafted by NBN Co would push up retail prices and create more revenue per user than is currently expected.
NBN Co put three price constructs on the table in June that either retain the status quo or offer a partial or full implementation of flat wholesale pricing.
The full flat price construct is the most favoured, but retail service providers (RSPs) have so far struggled to make sense of the numbers and how they have been reached.
The flat price construct, as proposed by NBN Co, would mean an immediate $5 to $20 a month hike in prices across the board, and yearly indexed increases of an unspecified amount above the rate of inflation.
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Telstra given green light to expand regional dominance under new spectrum limits
By Lisa Visentin and Zoe Samios
August 8, 2021 — 10.00pm
Telstra has declared a win in its fight for more of the country’s scarce radio frequency spectrum, with the telco poised to consolidate its dominance in regional areas under new limits set by the federal government.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher on Sunday imposed a 45 per cent limit on the amount of low-band radio frequency spectrum that telcos can buy to boost their regional 5G mobile coverage when it is auctioned off later this year. He set a separate bidding limit of 40 per cent for metro areas.
His decision represents a partial departure from the advice of the competition watchdog, which proposed a single 40 per cent limit across regional and metro areas, and is a boon for Telstra in the regions, handing it more than the 43 per cent limit it had lobbied for.
Mr Fletcher, however, maintained his decision amounted to an “incremental increase” to Telstra’s potential spectrum allocation and denied Optus and TPG’s regional customers would be disadvantaged.
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Friday, 06 August 2021 12:47
ACCAN calls on NBN Co to release low-income affordable broadband as Australians face lockdown
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) is requesting telecommunications company NBN Co to provide low-income affordable broadband to Australians facing extended lockdowns.
The ACCAN has called on NBN Co to launch a low-income affordable broadband to allow struggling households to work and learn remotely as millions of Australians are facing extended lockdowns.
ACCAN’s urgent call is part of the consumer advocacy group’s submission to NBN Co’s Special Access Undertaking Variation 2021 discussion paper.
ACCAN CEO Teresa Corbin says communities in New South Wales are entering their sixth week of lockdown.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-makes-spirited-defence-of-cvc-and-its-cost-to-date-568335
NBN Co makes spirited defence of CVC and its cost to date
By Ry Crozier on Aug 9, 2021 6:38AM
As industry unites a second time in its demand for change.
NBN Co has posted a spirited defence of its controversial bandwidth charge and of its incurred costs to date, as the top five internet providers - Telstra, Optus, Aussie Broadband, TPG Telecom and Vocus - united to demand action.
The first formal responses following a June ‘roundtable’ intended to kickstart a conversation on NBN Co’s future price and non-price terms shows a chasm between NBN Co and the industry’s thinking.
Importantly, just as they did last month, all five top retail service providers (RSPs), representing some 96 percent of fixed-line users, formally united on the issues of the future of the connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) charge and the cost of the NBN.
In the past, most - if not all - RSPs broadly agreed on these issues but took the fight individually to NBN Co. This time, however, they have united to offer a single joint view.
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Enjoy!
David.
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