Key Dates

Next Grant Round:
Applications for funding will open early 2025. 
> Information about our Grants Program

Independent Grants Panel:
Results of the recent EOI will be notified Dec 2024.
> Information about our Panel  

We can help:  grants@accan.org.au
or phone 02 9288 4000

Grants Information

Round Guidelines

Round Priorities

How to apply

Who can apply?

What is eligible?

How Grants are assessed

ACCAN's engagement with rural, regional and remote consumers has continually highlighted the importance of improving mobile communications outside of urban centres. Better mobile coverage will yield a range of benefits to regional and remote Australia including improved business opportunities, better access to essential services and enhanced safety and well-being.

Image of Johanna Plant, Paul Fletcher and Teresa Corbin

The Universal Service Obligation (USO) is a vital consumer protection in Australia. The USO ensures a standard telephone service (generally fixed line voice services) and pay phones are accessible to all people in Australia. It was formally introduced in 1991, but it has seen a number of changes over the years.

Consumers, government, regulators and industry are all stakeholders in a radically shifting communications environment. Together we are responsible for shaping a competitive, efficient and fair communications market that deliver all the potential benefits of affordable, available and accessible communications services to end users.

The 2010 ACCAN National Conference and Consumer Summit asks participants to think about the opportunities and challenges that we face in the provision of essential communications services in a digital age. We’ll explore opportunities to make the market work better for consumers, with a strong emphasis on actively ensuring no-one is left behind.

Brain Injury is common. Over 500,000 Australians have an acquired brain injury. Three out every four of them are aged under 65. Nick Rushworth, Executive of Brain Injury Australia, explains Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) below as part of Brain Injury Awareness week:

The presentations and transcripts of all M-Enabling Australasia 2013 sessions are now available. M-Enabling Australasia 2013, held on 14-15 August 2013, brought together the who's who of disability advocacy, policy makers, manufacturers, developers, service providers and consumers to discuss how to make technology more accessible for people with disability and older consumers.

People of all ages use phones, mobile phones, the internet and TV. But how much access is there really for the 1 in 6 Australians who are deaf or hearing-impaired? This group includes older people with an acquired hearing impairment, as well as younger people.

The ACMA’s major inquiry into Customer Service is now underway, with submissions due 10 September. To ensure you voice your experiences with the industry effectively, ACCAN will be hosting an information session about how to write a submission.

Join us for ACCAN's first Research Linkage Forum where we will showcase the diverse projects we are engaging in to drive our work and to build a consumer-centric base of evidence.

This summit is co-hosted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). The summit will be an opportunity for consumer advocates to outline how the telecommunications industry’s poor customer service and complaints-handling practices affects their clients and constituents, and comments on the recommendations being proposed by the ACMA.

 

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?

Please join us at a special event being held for our members to celebrate the first two years of Australia’s peak consumer body representing communications consumer. 

The members’ event will begin immediately after our AGM, commencing at 2pm.

Over the last year the communications landscape has changed dramatically. Consumers have never had more choice yet many consumers are confused about the products and services on offer, and service complaint numbers continue to rise.

In this conference we talk about how the market does, and does not, deliver for consumers. Is customer service improving? Will emerging technology provide better options for consumers in the future? What is the communications industry doing to focus on the vital service part of their businesses and how can it be done better?

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