Open access (infrastructure)

In the context of infrastructure, open access involves physical infrastructure such as railways and physical telecommunications network plants being made available to clients other than owners, for a fee.

For example, private railways within a steel works are private and not available to outsiders. In the hypothetical case of the steelworks having a port or a railway to a distant mine, outsiders might want access to save having to incur a possibly large cost of building their own facility.

Marconi and radio communication

The Marconi Company was a pioneer of long distance radio communication, which was particularly useful for ships at sea. Marconi was very protective about its costly infrastructure and refused—except for emergencies—to allow other radio companies to share its infrastructure. Even if the message sender was royalty, as in the Deutschland incident of 1902, they continued to refuse access. Since radio communication was so new, it preceded laws, regulations and licenses, which might otherwise impose conditions to open infrastructure to other players.

Pilbara railways

In the Pilbara region of Western Australia, two large mining companies operate their own private railway networks to bring iron ore from mines to the port. In 1999 North Limited made an application to access Rio Tinto's system, but Rio's takeover of North Limited meant that application was never fully tested. In 2004 Fortescue made an application to have the Mount Newman railway line owned by BHP Billiton declared for third party access.