- Telstra's Regulatory Group
- Telecommunications Regulation in Australia
- The Regulators
- Industry Self-Regulation
- Code of Practice for InfoCall 190 Services
Telstra's Regulatory Group
The telecommunications industry is highly regulated in Australia. In order to ensure Telstra's continued compliance with the regulatory regime, Telstra's regulatory group facilitates a thorough company-wide compliance program and provides advice and assistance on regulatory issues facing the company. The group is structured to give attention to the areas of technical regulation, consumer and compliance and regulatory strategy, as well as to service the specific needs of the various Telstra business units.
Telecommunications Regulation in Australia
The regulatory burden on Telstra is considerable. You can view a presentation (PPT, 355KB) depicting the various telecommunications regulatory controls to which Telstra Corporation is subject.
The Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy and the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy are primarily responsible for telecommunications industry policy and legislation.
Commonwealth legislation ensures Telstra provides services to all Australians according to the Universal Service Obligation. It also ensures new services are connected and faults are fixed within set timeframes according to the Customer Service Guarantee.
In managing Telstra's regulatory issues effectively, the regulatory group works with industry regulators who administer the government's telecommunications regulatory regime.
The Regulators
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has special powers under the Trade Practices Act to promote competition within the Australian Telecommunications industry and ensure consumers' interests are protected. The ACCC administers the telecommunications access regime, provisions for controlling anti-competitive conduct, Telstra's retail price caps and price control arrangements.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is responsible for administering technical regulation and other non-competition aspects of the industry under the Telecommunications Act and the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act.
The ACMA closely monitors Telstra's service performance to ensure it meets the high standards set by the Federal Government and delivers a number of reports including:
- The Customer Service Guarantee Report showing how Telstra is meeting its set deadlines for connecting new services and fixing repairs.
- Telstra's Quality of Service Report comes out four times each year and looks closely at how effectively Telstra is managing a wide range of services including payphones and call centres.
- The Telstra Network Reliability Report looks at the number of faults recorded across Australia's fixed line network at three levels - geographic, exchange and individual service.
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) is an industry-funded body established to investigate and resolve retail customer complaints about telecommunications services and carrier land access disputes.
Industry Self-Regulation
Telstra is a leading supporter of industry self-regulation as a member of the Communications Alliance (Comms Alliance). The Comms Alliance develops codes setting standards for issues such as complaint handling, billing and mobile number portability. The codes are registered with the ACMA and then become mandatory for the industry.
Telstra is an active participant in policy debate on regulatory and competition issues and is a keen contributor to industry development.
A selection of documents including submissions from the regulatory archive are available on our Reports and Submissions page.
Code of Practice for InfoCall 190 Services
Download the Code of Practice for InfoCall 190 Services (PDF, 152K).
