The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission recently received various submissions expressing support for the proposed regional tie-up between Telstra and TPG. Several of the submissions came from TPG customers or partners, including NAB, one of the top corporate accounts of TPG, and Australia’s third-largest bank.

The consultation of the ACCC revealed strong support from local government organisations, including the NSW local government association Alliance of Western Councils as well as individual councils in Bellingen, Moree Plains, and the Central Darling Shire in NSW and Corangamite in Victoria. Even the Australian government-funded Regional Development Australia committee in Peel also supports it. In this case, regional councils foster the Telstra-TPG tie-up as a good deal for their constituents. 

NAB noted that it is “one of the four major banks delivering financial services across Australia and as such has a distributed branch network and workforce across the continent.”

“For NAB, the MOCN deal presents opportunities to broaden mobile consumption by regional staff as well as staff travelling to regional Australia by introducing more affordable options,” the bank said.

“Further, options to reduce risk due to a single-supplier reliance in branch systems can be introduced. Overall, NAB’s view is that the MOCN will create more competition for a greater and more geographically dispersed population.”

NAB further argued: “The absence of the MOCN would limit the ability to increase the number of mobile-connected staff. To an extent, this creates a self-imposed limitation on ‘digitising’ NAB staff, impacting their efficiency in supporting NAB customers."

“Availability of technology services in Branches depends on communication links, an increasing number of which are delivered by mobile services. The future of 5G networks suggests mobile communications will increase in importance, meaning the diversity in supplier networks also becomes increasingly necessary for redundancy.”

Furthermore, the Internet Association of Australia said that it supported “the principle that open access provided at a fair cost is beneficial for the overall market.” Nevertheless, the group said the agreement raises the risk of “potentially entrenching dominant players in the industry, thereby hindering competition.”

“As such, we believe that any infrastructure built with public money should be open to all relevant and qualiβied telecommunications providers to access,” the IAA further added.

Meanwhile, MinterEllison and Herbert Smith Freehills approached the ACCC earlier this month on behalf of Optus. They said that Optus “would be prepared to agree to a confidentiality regime which limits access to this material to external advisers to Optus, as well as named internal Optus personnel for the purpose of receiving instructions.”

The ACCC then responded: “While the details of an appropriate confidentiality regime would be a matter for the Applicants and Optus to seek to agree, the ACCC does not envisage that this arrangement would result in disclosure of information to operational or commercial staff of Optus unless separately agreed between the parties and discussed in advance with the ACCC.”