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ACCAN has today released the 2016 ACCAN Grants Guidelines ahead of the Scheme's opening on Monday 8th February, 2016. The Scheme will be accepting applications for five weeks: from 8th February until 15th March, 2016 (please note the earlier closing round this year, due to an earlier Easter).
The ACCAN Grants Scheme funds projects that work towards a telecommunications market that is fair and inclusive for all – a market which is available, accessible and affordable. Projects focus on developing research, representation, or educational tools that address issues for telecommunications consumers in Australia.
If you have a great idea for a project which relates to a systemic and ongoing issue faced by phone or internet consumers, get in touch with us to chat about project ideas. The best applications are those that have consulted with ACCAN and have a thorough understanding of the work we do and the current policy issues we engage with.
Read more: 2016 Grants Scheme Guidelines released today
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The Government has announced delays to the start date of cost information and usage notifications for mobile resellers. The international mobile roaming warnings were due to begin in May 2016, but have been pushed back until 2018.
Read more: International roaming usage notifications delayed
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Telstra's major mobile network failure this week reminds us just how important it is to have a backup plan for our telecommunications.
As we rely more heavily on telecommunications to do business, it is important to develop a Business Continuity Plan for future loss of services. You need a plan for all your services: mobile, landline, broadband and any systems that rely on telecommunications networks such as EFTPOS terminals and security monitoring. You could be faced with a complete telecommunications outage from a natural disaster or another partial outage like the Telstra one that we experienced on 9 February, 2016.
Read more: Preparing small businesses for a telecommunications outage
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The Department of Communications and the Arts (DoCA) has released the Guidelines for Round 2 of the Mobile Black Spot Programme (MBSP). This means that the competitive bidding process for the Federal subsidy of $60 million by the three mobile network providers has now started.
ACCAN has compared the Round 1 and Round 2 Guidelines to identify what has changed. The Guidelines list all the criteria that the Federal Government will take into account when assessing whether to subsidise a particular site. Each criterion has a different weighting. Some of the weightings have changed this time round, and importantly there is a new 'remoteness of location criterion.' We are hopeful that this may encourage mobile coverage expanding into more remote areas where it is so badly needed. The main changes to note in the Assessment Criteria are:
Read more: Changes to Mobile Black Spot Programme criteria for Round 2
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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
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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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