TLDR version:  The coming year will be an important one in shaping the future telecoms landscape in Australia. We have identified three areas to watch based on the impact they will have on the market landscape in the second half of the 2020’s.

• Telecoms Pricing: Raising prices in 2024 could be more fraught – The commercial pressures on telcos to raise prices are still in place. However, further falls in inflation or weakness in the economy could create anxiety around further price rises.
• NBN: Competition, customer upselling and a clearer plan for exiting copper? – With the SAU signed off, new challenges include competition for greenfield customers, wireless substitution, upselling customers, and possibly the beginnings of an eventual ‘copper exit’.
• Rising expectations: A full agenda for government – Key inquiries expected to report this year cover topics such as the Optus outage and security incident, mobile in new developments, the regional telecoms review, and reform of the USO. These will not result in big changes in 2024, but all could have significant impact in the remainder of the decade.