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Broadband plans are commonly advertised on headline speed claims which may only be achievable in ideal test conditions and are not what consumers should expect in real world everyday use. Claims are qualified with an elusive list of factors that can affect performance, but this is difficult for consumers to engage with or apply to their service. This issue is heightened with nbn and the promise of faster and better technologies and services.
Read more: Summary: Independent Broadband Performance Information
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The ACOSS Poverty in Australia 2014 report indicates that an estimated 2.55 million (13.9%) of Australians are living in poverty. Current Australian research indicates that many low-income consumers are facing financial barriers in getting connected and staying connected to essential telephony and broadband services. Research also indicates that low-income consumers are spending a significantly higher proportion of their income for telecommunications access.
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The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) has released the 2nd Edition of its Community Consultation Guide in time for Round 2 of the Federal Government's Mobile Black Spot Programme (MBSP).
Mobile coverage is a key issue for consumers, particularly those who live in regional, rural, and remote areas. Improving mobile coverage is also one of ACCAN's key work priorities.
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The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) has launched a research report that found some consumers are losing around 23 per cent of their data to a megabyte rounding rip off. Megabyte rounding happens when a single ‘data session’ is rounded up to the nearest megabyte. A data session can be thought of as each time your smartphone talks to the internet, whether this is to watch a video, update your Facebook or receive an email. As some data sessions are very small, using only a few kilobytes, some consumers are on plans that are using up their data more rapidly. ACCAN is advising consumers to avoid these poor value plans.
Read more: ACCAN research finds that megabyte rounding might be stealing your mobile data
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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
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No one wants to be misunderstood
ACCAN is calling on all Government agencies, politicians, political parties and any other organisations that post videos online to ensure their videos have readable captions. It is especially important for politicians, political parties and government agencies to ensure that online video have captions that people can understand in the lead up to the 2016 Federal Election. Find out more about communications consumer priorities for 2016 on ACCAN's Election webpage.
Read more: Captioning videos on YouTube and Facebook
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