In October 2024, Vocus announced the signing of a binding agreement to acquire TPG’s Enterprise, Government and Wholesale fixed business and fibre network assets for A$5.25 billion.
Under the terms of the agreement, TPG will have ongoing access to Vocus’ fibre infrastructure.
Post acquisition Vocus says it will have built its network to more than 50,000km of owned or leased fibre, nearly 15,000km of international submarine cables, and close to 20,000 connected buildings.
The ACCC says its review of the proposed acquisition focused on how closely Vocus and TPG compete in the supply of data network and connectivity services, including fixed-line internet services, to large enterprise and government customers.
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“Our investigation found that Vocus concentrates on supplying large enterprise and government customers, whereas TPG focuses on the small and medium enterprise segment of the market,” ACCC Commissioner Dr Philip Williams said.
According to the ACCC, the introduction of NBN Co’s wholesale Enterprise Ethernet product in 2018 has reduced barriers to entry and expansion to supplying large customers, and has enabled providers with no fibre footprint to compete for larger customers.
“After the acquisition, Vocus will continue to face strong competitors including Telstra, Optus, Aussie Broadband, Superloop and managed service providers in supplying government, large enterprise, and SME customers,” Dr Williams said.
As part of the review, the ACCC also considered the impact of the acquisition in the supply of fixed line voice services, NBN wholesale aggregation services, and data centre, cloud and security services.
“Overall, we did not find that the acquisition would likely result in substantially lessening competition in any market,” Dr Williams said.
