The rebranding of the Competitive Carriers Coalition (CCC) into Commpete is all about a renewed push for the smaller telco players to gain "a seat at the table" when it comes to policy and decisions on both the National Broadband Network (NBN) and 5G, the CEOs involved have told media.
The group's new chair Michelle Lim on Monday morning announced that members include Amaysim, Macquarie Telecom, MNF Group, MyRepublic, TasmaNet, Vocus, Inabox, and Southern Phone.
"Our membership is diverse, with broad expertise, and companies at different stages in their business evolution, in different parts of the industry," Lim said.
"We cover carriers, wholesale enablers, software innovators, disruptors, MVNOs, and government specialists. We're also pleased that we've got regional players who face some of the biggest hurdles through lack of choice."
Speaking on the sidelines of the CommsDay Summit in Sydney on Monday, Amaysim CEO Julian Ogrin said his company had been initially keen to enter the NBN market during the forced migration of more than 8 million premises to a new network.
"That on the surface sounds like a really exciting opportunity to jump into ... [but] the competition that's evolved out of that is not really in line with what we've experienced on the mobile side," Ogrin said.
"You have Telstra who had 50 percent share of the Australian market at the start of this process; we're now halfway through that forced migration event, and if nothing changes Telstra will remain with over 50 percent share of the Australian market.
"That is a failure in competition on one of the single biggest forced migration events in Australian telco history."
Ogrin said having reached the midway point of the NBN[1]