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Once every three years the Department of Broadband, Communications & the Digital Economy (DBCDE) undertakes a Regional Telecommunications Review, which considers whether people in regional, rural and remote parts of Australia have equitable access to telecommunications.

If your organisation is based in regional Australia, or you live in regional Australia, we’d love to hear your views via this short survey by 4 November 2011.

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ACCAN Chief Executive Officer, Teresa Corbin, delivered an address to the telecommunications industry at the CommsDay Congress in Melbourne on Wednesday 12th October. Her speech covered a range of subjects, including the history of consumer representation in telecommunications and its funding arrangements, an outline of the work ACCAN does, and why consumer representation in this area remains so vital.

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ACCAN has made a submission to the ACCC consultation on the NBN Co-Optus agreement. We argue that marketing restrictions in the agreement are undesirable and that existing laws against misleading and deceptive conduct are sufficient.

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In establishing ACCAN in 2009, the government committed to conduct a review of ACCAN's performance after two years of operation. Having now reached that point, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) is keen to hear your views.

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ACCAN has provided its view on Telstra's proposed structural separation undertaking (SSU) in this submission to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC). Along with much of the industry, we agree with the ACCC that the current SSU is lacking a clear and enforceable commitment to fair treatment of retail competitors.

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Payphones are an important public resource that helps us to connect. ACCAN has submitted comments about the Consumer Safeguard Instruments for payphone repairs, removals and installations to make sure they work in the interest of consumers.

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ACCAN recommends that issues relating to social inclusion in the context of information communication technologies (ICT) should be addressed in the Human Rights Baseline Study and provides examples of statistical data that should be collected to measure this.

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What are captions?

Captions provide the dialogue and important background sounds in onscreen text for television viewers who are Deaf, hard of hearing or people watching television in noisy places, like the gym. Captions are displayed in text, usually at the bottom of the screen.

When are captions supposed to be provided on television?

All Australian free-to-air broadcasters must provide closed captions on programs shown between 6:00am and midnight on their primary channel (for example: Nine, Seven, Ten, ABC1 and SBS1). News and current affairs programs must have captions at all times.

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With the rollout of the National Broadband Network underway, many consumers want to know what Australia’s future will be like with universal access to high-speed broadband. What sort of services and applications in the home will telecommunications providers be able to offer their customers? What sort of education and health services can be delivered? Do we have sufficiently strong consumer protections to deal with a rapidly changing market and the proliferation of social media and cloud computing? How can we make sure no Australian gets left behind?

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New research has found consumers often feel so confused and overloaded with information when it comes to buying telco products they have to resort to a range of coping strategies to navigate the highly complex market.

Dr Paul Harrison will present the full findings and recommendations stemming from the report, Seeking Straight Answers: Consumer Decision-Making in Telecommunications, in his keynote address at the 2011 ACCAN National Conference being held in Sydney today and tomorrow.

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This research marks an exciting new phase in ACCAN’s advocacy for a fairer and more competitive communications market. Using qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the research goes to the heart of consumer relationships with their telecommunications providers and looks at why decisions in the market so often result in issues down the track. It helps us to gain insights into two broad areas:How are consumers navigating the telecommunications market, specifically in relation to experiences with confusion, information overload, and determining value and risk, and how can they fare better?

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The Mind the Gap report, authored by Dr. Linda Leung from the University of Technology Sydney, explores the experiences of refugees as communications consumers in Australia, and describes a trial education program aimed at developing higher level communications literacies during the settlement process.

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