Senior government officials have doused fears that a new policy to extend universal service obligations to mobile phones would further entrench Elon Musk’s Starlink service in Australia.
Appearing before a Senate Estimates hearing on Tuesday, Communication department deputy secretary James Chisholm said the policy would instead send a “strong signal” that the government “wants to see competition and other entrants” in the market.
“If the government didn’t commit to a policy framework like this, we would likely see incumbents do well, which is fine, but we also want to see new entrants and hence, the government is getting ahead of the curve…” he said.
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