Summary

  • On 15 October, the ACCC released a discussion paper and consumer survey for its Mobile Services Inquiry. Submissions are due 26 November; the survey closes 10 December 2026.
  • The Commission is weighing domestic roaming, access to another operator’s radio access network, or no declaration. It says it has formed no view on whether either service should be regulated.
  • Consumer accounts can locate practical problems, while a declaration still requires evidence about competition, connectivity, infrastructure use and investment incentives.

The inquiry has moved from announcement to evidence

Australia’s competition regulator began its Mobile Services Inquiry on 5 August. On 15 October it published the discussion paper and opened a consumer survey, moving the proceeding into a stage where affected users, businesses, operators and other institutions can put evidence on the record. That is the new event. It is not a finding that regional mobile competition has failed, nor an announcement that the ACCC will require network sharing.

The distinction matters because a public inquiry is part of the legal decision process. The ACCC says it has not formed a view on whether any wholesale mobile service should be declared. Submissions on the discussion paper are due by 5 p.m. AEDT on 26 November 2026. The survey remains open until 5 p.m. AEDT on 10 December. These are separate routes with different purposes, and the survey window runs two weeks beyond the written-submission deadline.

A consumer account and a market test answer different questions

The survey asks people what influences provider choice, why they switch, and how they experience coverage, service quality and choice. That can help show where a map or national average fails to describe a person’s practical options. A remote worker who cannot rely on a connection at a particular worksite may describe a different problem from a traveller who crosses between network footprints or a household choosing between retail plans.

Those reports are evidence of experience, not a radio measurement, a market definition or a count of areas where no other network is usable. The ACCC will need to compare them with information about network footprints, wholesale access, costs, capacity, customer demand and investment. The distinction is not a criticism of testimony. It keeps the testimony useful by matching each claim to the question it can answer.

The discussion paper opens the other channel: a formal examination of whether access regulation would promote the long-term interests of end users. Under the statutory framework, the ACCC must consider competition, any-to-any connectivity and the efficient use of, and investment in, infrastructure. It invites evidence on those tests rather than asking participants to decide the outcome by volume of support.

Roaming and radio access are different products

The ACCC is considering two possible wholesale services, as well as the possibility of declaring neither. With domestic roaming, a retail provider’s customers could use another mobile network in areas covered by a declaration. With a radio access network service, an access seeker could use another operator’s active radio equipment while retaining its own core network and more control over how it supplies service.

They may both extend a provider’s reach, but their operating and commercial effects differ. Roaming makes the host network the service path for the visiting customer. A RAN arrangement separates access to radio equipment from the access seeker’s core and service controls. The paper says those choices raise different questions about technical complexity, implementation time, capacity, resilience, service differentiation and future investment. Treating them as one generic “sharing” remedy would hide the control points the regulator must specify.

A declaration would require a provider to supply the defined service when requested under the access regime. It would not make access free, require every provider to use it, or automatically set nationwide coverage. Geographic scope, technologies, service types and duration would all need definition. The inquiry also does not decide how much coverage exists at any given address.

The future network could change the calculation

The ACCC asks participants to consider direct-to-device satellite services as the market evolves. The paper describes this technology as uncertain: it could complement terrestrial networks or become a substitute for some mobile services, depending on performance, capacity, timing and commercial viability. The ACCC is not proposing to declare satellite services in this proceeding. That scenario matters because access rules designed around today’s terrestrial scarcity could alter incentives differently if another delivery path becomes viable.

The paper expressly excludes Triple Zero emergency calling and temporary disaster roaming. Existing emergency calls can use an available mobile network under separate arrangements; the inquiry concerns ongoing wholesale access. A declaration would not prevent a network outage, create service in a place with no network, or replace the separate disaster-roaming work. Those boundaries keep a competition inquiry from being mistaken for an emergency-continuity guarantee.

Evidence is participation; authority remains with the Commission

Open submissions can reveal local conditions, expose weak assumptions and supply technical or commercial knowledge that the regulator does not hold. They do not transfer the decision right to the room. The ACCC retains the statutory task: assess evidence, compare plausible futures and explain whether a specified declaration satisfies the long-term-interest test. This is the useful boundary between participation and authority.

For readers and market participants, the next test is not how many comments favour sharing. It is whether the record connects a defined access problem to a remedy whose benefits exceed its costs, including effects on the host’s incentives to extend or upgrade a network and on access seekers’ incentives to build their own. The 15 October release opens that test. It does not answer it.

Sources: ACCC announcement, 15 October 2026; discussion paper · submission page; inquiry scope; consumer survey; inquiry launch, 5 August 2026.