TPG wins court fight with NBN

TPG Telecom has beaten NBN in a Supreme Court battle over allegations the telco had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct during the rollout of its fibre-to-the-basement network.

The court action, which was lodged in the NSW Supreme Court in October last year, was part of the government monopoly’s attack on TPG which is exploiting a legislative loophole to compete with the NBN by rolling out its own fibre network to some 500,000 apartment blocks.

The legal action centred on plans by TPG’s Pipe Networks to use the power supply in apartment blocks when connecting its fibre network into apartments.

Writs were lodged against TPG alleging misleading advertising over the telco’s claims that it could wire certain apartment buildings.

NBN had claimed the telco was misleading strata managers and building owners by informing them it was legally able to access and draw power from existing sockets.

But Justice Kunc of the Supreme Court today found that Pipe was entitled by the Telecommunications Act to install its equipment in the buildings as well as to plug its equipment into the common property of the building and to draw electricity.

“We are very pleased to have been successful in these proceedings,” TPG general counsel Tony Moffatt said.

“Carrier rights have been in place since competition was introduced to the telecommunications market and were designed to place all competitive carriers in an equal position. This judgment is important for the industry and confirms that TPG, NBN and all other carriers have an equal entitlement to install and operate equipment in buildings, including by using electricity.”

An NBN spokeswoman said the company had taken Pipe to court to get clarity on the “ambiguous” law contained in the Telecommunications Act.

“While we are still considering the impacts of the judgment, our initial view is that this decision will help the rollout of the NBN Co network over the coming years,” the spokeswoman said.

NBN’s battle against TPG’s assault on its wholesale monopoly is three-pronged -- commercial, legal and government.

The push by NBN to accelerate the rollout of its fibre-to-the-building product is a counter-attack against TPG Telecom’s plans to target half a million of the nation’s most lucrative apartment blocks with its own FTTB product.

NBN has plans to connect about 6000 apartments to its fibre network by the middle of the year before ramping up the rollout to cover one million premises by the end of 2020.

TPG has been NBN’s main competitor in the battle to connect apartment buildings with fast fibre connections, but the telco earlier this year was forced to withdraw its fibre-to-the-basement product from sale following regulations put in place by the government to protect the NBN monopoly from competitive threats.

The telco’s withdrawal came after Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull late last year ratified changes to the telecommunication carrier licence to require companies offering high-speed broadband networks to provide wholesale access on a non-discriminatory, structurally separated basis, ensuring that consumers could choose from multiple retail service providers.

This article first appeared in The Australian Business Review