Telstra Structural Separation Moves Ahead

Telstra will be structurally separated into wholesale network services and retail businesses as part of new legislation related to creation of a new National Broadband Network for Australia. As part of the new law, Telstra will sell its fixed-line access assets to the NBN as well.

Many practical details remain to be ironed out, and it is too early to make a firm judgment about how the structural separation will affect Telstra's market and financial position. But the separation ought to provide some evidence, over time, of how important "network ownership" is for a major tier one telco.

Generally speaking, most executives of tier one service providers continue to believe that access network ownership confers business advantage. Ownership means service providers can create more advanced facilities on their own accord, without the restriction of leasing only such capabilities as a third party might be willing and able to supply. Comcast is free to create and sell 50 Mbps broadband access connections whenever it wishes to, because it does not have to rely on a third party to create such features. Wireless providers can upgrade to fourth-generation networks on their own schedule, rather than waiting for third parties to build such networks.

Also, to the extent that a single network can be used to support multiple services (the whole idea between IP networks), ownership of a broadband access network allows creation and offering of many complementary services ranging from voice to entertainment video, business services and conferencing, for example.

Smaller competitors, on the other hand, frequently deem widespread wholesale access to be the underpinning for their business operations, since they cannot afford to build their own access networks on a widespread basis.

So at least in principle, the coming NBN ought to allow many more retail service providers to try and grab some share of the consumer and smaller business markets. In principle, that should lead to Telstra having less overall market share.

In June 2010 Telstra's share of the total Australian communications market was just over 60 percent, but virtually all observers expect Telstra's share to decline in 2011 and 2012.

Optus is perhaps the major contestant Telstra faces, as Optus has market share between 21 percent and 22 percent.  Vodafone and Hutchison have merged their Australian businesses and could be a stronger competitor as well. Optus has built and operates a number of hybrid fiber coax access networks in Australia and is not likely to decommission them, suggesting that Optus will use the NBN access facilities at some point to expand into new geographies.

Optus competes in the mobile segment as well, operating a wireless 3G network that reaches more than 97 percent of the Australian population.

Historically, one might argue, the competitive benefits of robust wholesale access have been most clear in markets where the former telecom monopoly represents the only fixed-network access capability in a region. One might argue that the benefits arguably are least when at least two strong facilities-based access networks exist in most markets.

Despite concern about Telstra's strong position in the market, its declining market share, across virtually every fixed-line and mobile service, suggests that the move to a NBN framework will not fundamentally change the Australian marke's dynamics. At least immediately, the NBN will spur many new entrants.

But communications always is a scale-dependent business. Over time, the normal market dynamic is for disparate smaller operators to combine in an attempt to gain more marketing scale. The NBN will not change that dynamic. One might predict an initial flurry of new entrants into the wireline markets, followed by a period of consolidation where market share concentrates in a smaller number of viable players.

Nor will the Telstra structural separation necessarily settle the argument about the strategic importance of access access ownership. One might argue that Telstra's retail unit's success now will be judged solely by its retail effectiveness, not the advantage of its network asset ownership. That will be true to some extent. The problem is that Telstra's market share has been declining for some time.

A continuation of that market share shift would not conclusively prove that access network ownership was important, and that Telstra "needed" those assets. At the same time, it is perhaps unreasonable to expect Telstra's market share to tumble without end.

At some point, Telstra's share should stabilize. That would not, in and of itself, "prove" that the access ownership ultimately was unimportant. In the U.S. market, where strong telco and cable competitors face each other in nearly every local area, the two players dominate consumer markets, roughly splitting new markets and gradually taking share in each others' legacy markets as well. There are a few markets where a third fixed-line contestant operates, but those scenarios are relatively rare, and no third provider typically has market share anywhere near what the local telco and cable operator have.

There are some market segments where a third provider has significant share. Satellite entertainment video provides one example. Also, looking just at the "voice services" market, mobile providers collectively have more than 50 percent voice market share, across all network access types.

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