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Broadband for the Bush Alliance
Grant round: 2017-18
Amount: $51,005
Read more: Internet and telecommunications services in rural Australia – an evidence based approach
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QUT School of Justice, Faculty of Law
Grant round: 2017-18
Amount: $53,247
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Hutt St Centre
Grant round: 2017-18
Amount: $5,000
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The Australian Communications Consumer Action network (ACCAN) has a strong membership base of disability organisations and individuals with disability. The most consistent feedback we get from these members relates to the lack of available information about telecommunications equipment and services for people with disability. The difficulty of accessing telecommunications for people with disability in Australia has long been recognised as a fundamental contributor to the disability digital divide.
While there is a growing number of new and emerging telecommunication products which can improve access and participation for people with disability, without information about these products and how to access them, people with disability will continue to be left out of our increasingly connected digital society.
Read more: ACCAN’S Disability Mystery Shopping report 2017
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In 2016 ACCAN commissioned a follow-up to our 2014 Disability Mystery Shopping survey. Disappointingly, the results indicate that little has changed for consumers with disability in the intervening years. Telco sales staff have very little knowledge of products or services suitable for consumers with disability.
Despite industry initiatives to improve the availability of appropriate information after the 2014 survey consumers with disability continue to struggle to find relevant and useful information about mainstream telecommunications products.
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Guaranteed access to broadband services for all Australians is a step closer after a Senate Committee last night recommended the Telecommunications Reform Package be passed by Parliament.
The recommendation was welcomed by the Regional, Rural and Remote Communications Coalition (RRRCC).
“We are pleased the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee has taken this view,” National Farmers’ Federation President, Fiona Simson said.
“In effect, this new obligation will, for the first time, legally ensure all Australians have access to broadband.
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Have you registered for the ACCANect Conference yet? There’s only two weeks left to get your ticket.
It’s being held at the Aerial UTS Function Centre in Sydney on Wednesday 20 September – Thursday 21 September, 2017.
Read more: The ACCANect Conference is fast approaching
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ACCAN welcomes Telstra’s announcement that it will no longer offer third party mobile subscriptions to its customers from 3 December, 2017. Our recent survey found that as many as 1.9m consumers across Australia have found unexpected third party charges on their phone bills in the previous six months.
“We congratulate Telstra on stepping up and taking action to stop their customers from getting slugged by unwanted third party subscriptions,” said ACCAN CEO, Teresa Corbin. “Consumers have had to put up with these unexpected charges far too long.”
While this is a welcome move, ACCAN is calling for stricter regulation on third party billing because so many consumers are getting caught out (see below for additional safeguards we are calling for).
Read more: Telstra customers at reduced risk of unexpected third party charges
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ACCAN welcomes the ACCC’s guidance to retail service providers (RSPs) on broadband speed claims released today. The guidance should help clear up the consumer confusion around broadband speeds. The informative labels that the ACCC has suggested (basic evening speed, standard evening speed, standard plus evening speed and premium evening speed) will help consumers better understand the speeds they can expect from their services, and provide a useful guide on what level of service performance they are buying.
“At the moment consumers are unable to tell what speed they can expect from a service during busy periods,” said ACCAN CEO, Teresa Corbin. “The ACCC’s advice to RSPs to focus their marketing on speed performance during busy periods will help consumers to know what speeds their services will actually deliver during peak times.
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5G mobile broadband services are expected to deliver many benefits and increased capacity services for consumers. The ACMA is examining the use of a spectrum band (3.6GHz) for this use in the near future.
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Since May 2016 nbn has been attempting to change the rules under which it operates in a document called the Special Access Undertaking (or SAU). These changes need to be approved by the ACCC. Primarily, this is to include other technologies (HFC, FTTN and FTTB) in the SAU. After the ACCC refused to accept its last proposed changes, nbn has revised the document again.
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Every quarter the ACCC releases a report on the services operating over the NBN wholesale network. The report provides some interesting insights into the NBN, here are some that we find useful.
Number of services
The report shows that over 2.5 million premises are connected to the NBN as at June 2017.
Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) is the primary technology used. The number of services over both Fibre to the Node (FTTN) and Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial (HFC) technologies are increasing at a fast rate. The graph below charts the number of services for each quarter by access technology.
Figure 1: Number of services by access technology1
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