It’s a sad fact of life that one day we will die.

Many of us think of our legacy simply in terms of money in the bank, superannuation, cars, homes and other physical assets, but with more and more of our lives being lived online we have a large digital footprint we could leave behind as well.

Read more: Managing your digital legacy

Today, ACCAN Director of Policy, Una Lawrence, delivered a presentation on ACCAN’s policy outcomes to improve communications services and products for Australian consumers at the Broadband for the Bush Forum.

The speech identified six areas of focus where current policy settings are not delivering for consumers:

Read more: ACCAN presentation at Broadband for the Bush Forum 2016

Last week, Optus announced that it had improved the experience for their small business consumers by offering more specialist team members and having a network of small business consumers.

ACCAN welcomes this announcement. These initiatives are a positive step in the right direction.

Read more: More specialist small business telco services needed

Telecommunications outages happen from time to time. On November 8 2023, Optus experienced a critical nationwide outage on mobile and NBN broadband networks that lasted at least 8 hours and, for some customers, up to 12 hours. As of November 9 2023, Optus is offering affected consumers on eligible plans 200GB of extra data, and free, unlimited data for pre-paid customers on weekends for the rest of the year. For the latest information, see the Optus Outage Response page.

After an outage on its mobile and fixed networks in 2016, Telstra offered its mobile customers free data days as compensation. For the NBN/ADSL outage, Telstra offered a $25 credit to consumers and a $50 credit to businesses who were offline for an extended period of time. This was applied automatically to customer accounts.

Depending on your circumstances, the compensation offered by your telco may not be adequate. If you or your business was affected and suffered losses due to an outage, you may be entitled to seek additional compensation. 

Read more: Compensation for telecommunications outages

You may have noticed that we’ve launched our brand new website. We’ve been working on the new website for quite some time and we’re very excited to finally have it up and running.

The new website is more user-friendly, mobile-friendly and of course, it is accessible to consumers who use assistive technologies like screen readers.

With our new website, we’re well placed to provide consumers with the latest news, information and consumer resources.

The website is now divided into two main areas: Helpful Consumer Information and ACCAN’s Work.

Read more: We’ve launched our new website

Have you received a text message like the one below informing you that you’ve subscribed to a subscription service and will be charged a fee for that service?

These types of messages don’t come from your telco and may result in charges being added to your phone bill. These charges are for third party services which means your telco is allowing another provider to sell content to you which you pay for on your phone bill. What you are buying can be phone apps, pay per view videos, games and other content. They can be one-off charges or ongoing subscriptions.

Read more: What to do if you get third party charges on your phone bill

Recently ACCAN has heard reports of consumers having to replace their NBN backup batteries earlier than expected, sometimes while under warranty.

Prior to October 2014, it was mandatory to have a backup battery in an NBN box for services in fibre to the premises areas. It is now an optional feature.

Not all consumers need to have a backup battery. You only need to have one if other services are reliant on your connection, or if you have no alternative access to emergency services (e.g. via mobile services) when there is a power outage. These services include medical alarms and fixed-line telephones.

The recent reports suggest that many consumers are finding that their backup battery has needed replacing sooner than expected. ACCAN is concerned that poor quality batteries may cost consumers extra money if they keep needing to be replaced. The process of replacing a battery may be difficult for some consumers. We are concerned that some may require the assistance of a technician when replacing the battery which would also add to the costs.

Read more: Confusion over NBN backup batteries

More and more parents are purchasing phones for their teenage children. Research from the ACMA in 2013 showed that 67 per cent of 12 to 13 year olds had a mobile phone. Mobile phones make keeping in touch with teenagers easy, but having a mobile phone also means greater responsibility for teens.

In this article we look at what parents should know before purchasing a mobile phone for their child.

Teens and parents need to be aware of the costs of a smartphone. These can be expensive especially if they exceed their monthly limits. A pre-paid plan may be a good option for a teenager because there's no risk of bill shock.

Read more: Your child’s first mobile phone

How often do you use the internet each week? Statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics released in February 2016 showed that the mean number of hours spent per week on the internet for both males and females is 10 hours.

Ten hours per week doesn’t seem like much time, but when you think about all of the activities we now do online – accessing education, job opportunities, government services and more – our reliance on the internet becomes very clear.

While some of us may take broadband for granted, there is a growing group of consumers from all over the country who are struggling with poor internet services or even no services at all.

Read more: Facebook group helping rural consumers with internet issues

How do you pay your phone and internet bills? Direct debit from a bank account or credit card? Over the phone or online? How about by BPAY or in person at your provider's store or Australia Post?

The amount of billing methods available is overwhelming. Each provider has a different range of options, but there are some common ones like those mentioned above.

When choosing how to pay your bill, you should be aware that some methods attract fees. While these are only usually a few dollars or a small percentage of the total amount, over the life of a contract they can add up to a significant amount that you could be saving.

Read more: How do you pay your bill?

ACCAN CEO, Teresa Corbin, presented at the CommsDay Summit 2016 in Sydney on 4 April. This year's CommsDay Summit brought together telecoms industry leaders and politicians from across the country to discuss topics including the NBN, fixed and wireless technologies and the market.

The speakers included Minister for Communications and the Arts, Senator the Hon Mitch Fifield, Shadow Communications Minister, Jason Clare, as well as representatives from nbn, Vodafone, Telstra, Optus and other telecommunications providers.

Teresa's presentation focused on three of ACCAN's six key priorities for consumers in 2016:

• Improved affordability for low income consumers
• Future protections and universal communications services
• Improved consumer decision making

Some of these priorities were also highlighted at ACCAN's Meet the People Forum held at Parliament House in Canberra in February, 2016. The presentation also provided an overview of ACCAN's suite of consumer education materials.

Read more: ACCAN presentation at CommsDay Summit 2016

Many plans, including pre-paid plans and some month to month plans, on the market now work on a '28 day month' meaning your credit expires after 28 days, rather than the traditional 30 or 31 days of a calendar month. This is not an entirely new practice, but it is a price hike that will affect consumers who prefer pre-paid plans or month to month contracts that do not lock you in. These consumers will get 13 bills during the year rather than 12.

Twenty-eight day plans are used by Optus, Telstra, Vodafone, Virgin Mobile and amaysim. Optus, Telstra and Vodafone also offer 30 day pre-paid plans.

Read more: What ‘28 day months’ mean for you