Telecommunications Amendment (Next‑Generation Broadband Interference Management) Regulation 2015

Select Legislative Instrument No. 171, 2015

I, the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC QC, Administrator of the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, acting with the advice of the Federal Executive Council, make the following regulation.

Dated 29 October 2015

Paul de Jersey

Administrator

By His Excellency’s Command

Mitch Fifield

Minister for Communications

Contents

1 Name

2 Commencement

3 Authority

4 Schedules

Schedule 1—Amendments

Telecommunications Regulations 2001

1  Name

  This is the Telecommunications Amendment (Next‑Generation Broadband Interference Management) Regulation 2015.

2  Commencement

 (1) Each provision of this instrument specified in column 1 of the table commences, or is taken to have commenced, in accordance with column 2 of the table. Any other statement in column 2 has effect according to its terms.

Note: This table relates only to the provisions of this instrument as originally made. It will not be amended to deal with any later amendments of this instrument.

 (2) Any information in column 3 of the table is not part of this instrument. Information may be inserted in this column, or information in it may be edited, in any published version of this instrument.

3  Authority

  This instrument is made under the Telecommunications Act 1997.

4  Schedules

  Each instrument that is specified in a Schedule to this instrument is amended or repealed as set out in the applicable items in the Schedule concerned, and any other item in a Schedule to this instrument has effect according to its terms.

Schedule 1—Amendments

Telecommunications Regulations 2001

1  Regulation 4.1 (heading)

Repeal the heading, substitute:

4.1  Industry codes—application of section 115 of the Act

2  Subregulation 4.1(1)

Omit “developed by the Australian Communications Industry Forum”.

3  At the end of subregulation 4.1(2)

Add:

Note: The Trade Practices Act 1974 was renamed as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 by the Trade Practices Amendment (Australian Consumer Law) Act (No. 2) 2010.

4  At the end of Part 4

Add:

4.2  Industry codes and industry standards—next‑generation broadband services and interference between certain services

 (1) The rule in subsection 115(1) of the Act does not apply to an industry code or an industry standard to the extent to which compliance with the code or standard is likely to have the indirect effect of requiring customer equipment, customer cabling, a telecommunications network or a facility to have particular design features that relate to:

 (a) interference between telecommunications systems being operated to supply any of the following:

 (i) next‑generation broadband services;

 (ii) legacy services;

 (iii) any other carriage services supplied over twisted pair cables; or

 (b) the health and safety of a person operating or working on customer equipment, customer cabling, a telecommunications network or a facility that incorporates, or is used with, a next‑generation broadband service; or

 (c) the integrity of customer equipment, customer cabling, a telecommunications network or a facility that incorporates, or is used with, a next‑generation broadband service.

Note: For paragraph (a), an industry code or industry standard may, for example, have the indirect effect of requiring a facility to have particular design features that relate to interference between telecommunications systems being operated to supply competing next‑generation broadband services that use the same cable bundle.

 (2) The rule in subsection 115(1) of the Act does not apply to an industry code or an industry standard to the extent to which compliance with the code or standard is likely to have the direct or indirect effect of requiring customer equipment, customer cabling, a telecommunications network or a facility to meet performance requirements that relate to:

 (a) interference between telecommunications systems being operated to supply any of the following:

 (i) next‑generation broadband services;

 (ii) legacy services;

 (iii) any other carriage services supplied over twisted pair cables; or

 (b) the health and safety of a person operating or working on customer equipment, customer cabling, a telecommunications network or a facility that incorporates, or is used with, a next‑generation broadband service; or

 (c) the integrity of customer equipment, customer cabling, a telecommunications network or a facility that incorporates, or is used with, a next‑generation broadband service.

Note: For paragraph (a), an industry code or industry standard may, for example, have the direct or indirect effect of requiring a facility to meet performance requirements that relate to interference between telecommunications systems being operated to supply competing next‑generation broadband services that use the same cable bundle.

 (3) A legacy service is one of the following services:

 (a) PSTN (public switched telephone network);

 (b) ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line);

 (c) ADSL2;

 (d) ADSL2+;

 (e) SHDSL (single pair high‑speed digital subscriber line);

 (f) ISDN (integrated services digital network);

 (g) another service (other than VDSL (very high‑speed digital subscriber line)) covered by the Communications Alliance Industry Code C559:2012 “Unconditioned Local Loop Service (ULLS) Network Deployment”, as registered by the ACMA on 16 May 2012.

 (4) A next‑generation broadband service is one of the following services:

 (a) VDSL;

 (b) VDSL2;

 (c) VDSL2 with vectoring;

 (d) G.fast;

 (e) a service that uses a successor technology to any other next‑generation broadband service.