Telecommunications is an essential service in today’s day and age. Our communities and small businesses are more reliant on telecommunications than ever before, and yet arrangements to support increased reliability have not changed substantially in 20 years. This is despite COVID-19 lockdowns accelerating our reliance on broadband services, with consumers needing to be online for work, education, and to provide and receive health and other government services, and natural disasters across Australia highlighting the need for more reliable and resilient forms of connectivity.

Stronger foundations are necessary to support the delivery of essential communications services. ACCAN will advocate for the introduction of arrangements for fast connection times, prompt fault repair, punctual appointment keeping and adequate compensation for consumers and small businesses if timeframes are not met. We will work to ensure services are fit for purpose before, during and after emergency situations and natural disasters. We will seek network reliability measures for all networks to minimise disruptive outages, and robust, strengthened arrangements for priority assistance customers, to assist those with serious health conditions and disabilities stay connected while at home. Focusing on these areas will help ensure that communications services across Australia can reliably meet the needs of all consumers.