Vodafone Hutchison Australia is pushing for NBN Co to turn its $1.1 billion fixed wireless program into a rural and regional mobile network that could rival Telstra’s.
Vodafone Australia has made the call as part of its submission to the $100 million Mobile Coverage Program, which is a plan to subsidise the construction of mobile towers in rural areas with service “black spots”.
NBN Co is separately building a $1.1 billion fixed wireless network to supply high-speed broadband to around 500,000 rural and regional homes and businesses. But the towers cannot provide a mobile service because the antennas being installed are aimed at stationary targets.
NBN Co’s incoming chief executive, Bill Morrow, is also currently acting as Vodafone Australia’s chief executive until the end of March.
Vodafone’s comments are likely to raise the ire of Telstra, which has warned it is willing to take the government to court if it is forced to open its mobile network up to rivals.
The Department of Communications discussion paper into the $100 million program included the possibility of using NBN Co’s towers to host mobile equipment from carriers such as Telstra and SingTel-Optus.
Working collaboratively
But Vodafone Australia general manager for industry strategy Matthew Lobb told The Australian Financial Review that both programs could work together to become a wholesale mobile network with around 2200 base stations.
“NBN is delivering an LTE network as part of its fixed wireless network [and] it’s exactly the same technology that the mobile providers are using to build their 4G networks,” he said.
“For an incremental cost, which if we’re using low-band would be an additional antenna .?.?. you not only deliver a fixed-wireless service but you also will deliver a mobile service.
“That’s an example of where, if the industry can work collaboratively, then you can reduce costs and improve the business case for all investors.”
The new network would then allow customers from Vodafone Australia to get roaming services when they went to rural areas. Telstra is often the only provider in rural towns where it does not have a sharing agreement with its rivals.
Open access provisions
Mr Lobb also said whichever carriers won funding from the black spots program should be forced to turn the resulting network into a roaming one for use by competitors as part of “open access” provisions – a move Telstra chief executive David Thodey “vehemently” opposed last week.
“Telstra has a range of advantages that make it very difficult for other providers to make investments in regional Australia,” Mr Lobb said. “They’ve received historically significant government subsidies and they already have the customer base out there from their fixed-line network so those are significant roadblocks to competition.
“Telstra shouldn’t be afraid of real competition [because] it grows the size of the pie and consumers will win from an environment where there’s real choice.”
Telstra’s Mr Thodey said he applauded the program but “vehemently opposed” its open-access proposals when asked about it last week.
“We have 1.4 million Australian shareholders who put their own money into this company and they should get a reward,” he said.
Public submissions on the $100 million program were due by the end of February and a decision on the winning telco is expected to be announced around mid-2014
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