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ACCAN - Australia’s peak communications consumer group – today welcomed the news that the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland has directed the ACMA to establish an industry standard to ensure telecommunications companies communicate with consumers in the event of an outage.

This reform follows advocacy from ACCAN and other organisations which led to a recommendation in the Bean Review into the Optus Outage of 8 November 2023 that there needed to be a clear industry standard to protect consumers from future outages.    

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As part of Scams Awareness Week, ACCAN – Australia's peak communications consumer body – is calling on Australians to ‘share a story, stop a scam’.

Consumers encounter scams on a daily basis. Communications services – text messages and phone calls – are leading contact methods criminals use to target people. We are all part of the fight to stop scammers stealing money and information from Australians. As such, ACCAN is pleased to support the National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) as they ask Australians to ‘share a story, stop a scam’ this Scams Awareness Week, 26-30 August.

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Australia’s peak communications consumer body, ACCAN, welcomes today’s joint announcement from major telcos Telstra and Optus that the shutdown of 3G networks will be delayed until 28 October.

ACCAN yesterday called on the Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland to delay the shutdown due to health and safety concerns particularly with the ongoing access to triple zero services and medical and safety devices.

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Australia’s peak communications consumer body, ACCAN, is calling on the Communications Minister Michelle Rowland to exercise her discretionary powers and delay the 3G shutdown due to unacceptable public safety concerns.

The Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee last week released an Interim Report into the shutdown of 3G networks. It found that up to 77,000 mobile phone users would be unable to call triple zero emergency services when the nation’s 3G networks were switched off.

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ACCAN welcomes today’s joint announcement by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland that 15,000 families are now receiving free internet connections via the School Student Broadband Initiative (SSBI).

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Consumers expect their telcos to be following basic rules to protect their critical accounts, and news of Telstra’s failure to follow well established customer ID processes is deeply disappointing, says ACCAN, the peak body for Australian communication consumers.

Customer ID rules exist to protect consumers against misuse of their accounts, loss of services or other fraudulent activity. The ACMA has today found Telstra failed to follow these rules for 168,000 high-risk customer interactions, including over 7000 interactions concerning customers identified as being in vulnerable situations. A penalty of $1,551,000 has been levied as a result.

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Consumers would be forgiven for feeling angry and betrayed after an ACMA investigation revealed Telstra made available to the public details of 140,000 telco customers who had requested unlisted numbers (also known as silent numbers), in breach of carrier licence conditions.

Consumers have the right to ask their provider to make their phone number unlisted. Calls from unlisted phones do not show up on the phones of recipients. The number also doesn’t appear in phone directories.

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Australia’s peak communications consumer advocacy group, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), has today announced 3 projects that it will fund through the 2024 Round of its Independent Grants Program.

The ACCAN Independent Grants Program funds projects to enable research on telecommunications issues, represent telecommunications consumers, or create educational tools which empower consumers to understand telecommunications products and services and make decisions in their own interests.

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Ms Carol Bennett has officially commenced her role as Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) as of Monday 8 July. This follows a prior announcement of her appointment to succeed Andrew Williams, who departed earlier this year.

Ms Bennett is a highly respected executive with extensive experience in senior management and board roles within the health and aged care sector. Importantly, Ms Bennett has an established reputation for effective national advocacy on behalf of consumers. She joins ACCAN from the Alliance for Gambling Reform, where she was CEO since 2021.

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The ACCC response to the latest draft of the Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code validates long-held consumer concerns about the suitability of self-regulation to protect telecommunications consumers.

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) welcomes and supports the comments of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on the May 20 draft of the TCP Code.

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Telco consumers fed up with SMS scams will soon be able to more easily distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent texts, thanks to new proposed legislation.

ACCAN welcomes the introduction of legislation to establish an SMS Sender ID Register by the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland in Parliament today.

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Accessible Telecoms, a service run by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) has today launched a new resource to help consumers check their devices will work after the shutdown of 3G networks.

Accessible Telecoms provides consumers with free information, tips and training about accessible products and software. Today, they are launching a 3G shutdown tipsheet to help ensure their audience isn’t left behind. The tipsheet walks consumers through how they can check their connected devices and, if necessary, replace devices that aren’t compatible post-shutdown.

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