Commonwealth Numbered Acts

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT 1997 No. 47 of 1997 - SECT 66

(1) The Minister must ensure that Telstra's carrier licence is subject to one
or more conditions directed towards achieving:

   (a)  the result that, by 1 July 1997, Telstra is in a position to make
        available, to at least 93.4% of the Australian population, a carriage
        service that provides a digital data capability broadly comparable to
        that provided by a data channel with a data transmission speed of 64
        kilobits per second supplied to end-users as part of the designated
        basic rate ISDN service; and

   (b)  the result that, by 31 December 1998, Telstra is in a position to make
        available, to at least 96% of the Australian population, a carriage
        service that provides a digital data capability broadly comparable to
        that provided by a data channel with a data transmission speed of 64
        kilobits per second supplied to end-users as part of the designated
        basic rate ISDN service.

(2) For the purposes of this section, if:

   (a)  immediately before 1 July 1997, Telstra supplied a basic rate
        Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) service; and

   (b)  the service complied with any of the standards for ISDN services made
        by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI); the
        service is a designated basic rate ISDN service.

(3) For the purposes of this section, the determination of the comparability
of the digital data capability of a carriage service is to be based solely on
a comparison of the data transmission speed available to an end-user of the
service.

(4) This section does not, by implication, limit the application of section 63
to Telstra.