June 2 2017

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Vodafone fights ACCC over 'vague' mobile ruling

Mathew Dunckley

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Vodafone will fight the competition watchdog in court to overturn a decision governing access to mobile phone networks in regional areas.

Should Telstra share its regional mobile ...

Should Telstra share its regional mobile network?

The ACCC has launched an inquiry into domestic roaming services which has Telstra shareholders up in arms.

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Should Telstra share its regional mobile network?

The ACCC has launched an inquiry into domestic roaming services which has Telstra shareholders up in arms.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in May signalled it would side with Telstra in a long-running dispute over whether rivals should get access to its network in regional and remote areas.

In a statement issued on Friday, Vodafone said the company would take legal action to overturn the draft ruling that the ACCC would not "declare" wholesale domestic mobile roaming.

A decision to "declare" mobile networks would have forced Telstra, Optus and Vodafone to let other carriers access their entire networks at regulated prices.

Vodafone's statement said the decision would mean mobile users would "continue to pay too much and suffer poor coverage in regional areas".

"If domestic roaming is not declared, consumers will be denied the benefits of increased coverage, competition and choice," it said.

"We feel so strongly about the impact on consumers, we are taking legal action as we believe the inquiry process which produced the draft decision was flawed."

Vodafone's legal action will see it ask the Federal Court to review the ACCC's inquiry process.

"We do not believe the process has been carried out properly because a specific domestic roaming service has not been defined by the ACCC," it said.

"The process is failing consumers because it is too vague. The decision on domestic roaming is too important to regional Australia for the inquiry to continue in a flawed way."

In a statement the ACCC said it was considering Vodafone's response.

"We have consulted extensively with regional Australia in relation to our draft decision, and the majority of views we received from farmer and other stakeholders groups were not in favour of the ACCC declaring domestic roaming," it said.

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