The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced today that it has agreed to register a revised Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code, effective 1 September 2012.
The new TCP Code was prepared and submitted for registration by the Australian telecommunications industry body, Communications Alliance, earlier this year to replace the current version of the Code which was registered by the ACMA in September 2007.
The ACMA's registration of the new TCP Code follows a review of the current Code, the release of the ACMA's recommendations from its Reconnecting the Customer inquiry into the industry and the ACMA issuing a notice to Communications Alliance requesting that it address regulatory deficiencies identified in the Reconnecting the Customer public inquiry report and strengthen the existing self-regulated consumer protections within five months.
Before the Code was submitted to the ACMA for registration, the draft Code was substantially amended following criticism by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). ACCAN publicly refused to support the new Code when it was submitted for registration, arguing in support of reducing self-regulation of the telecommunications industry in favour of direct regulation by the ACMA.
ACCAN has today called for the ACMA to be given greater enforcement powers if it finds that a provider has breached the new Code. Currently, the ACMA can issue a direction to comply with the Code but it does not have the power to directly fine or otherwise impose penalties upon providers.
Key features of the new TCP Code
From 1 September this year, the revised TCP Code will clarify some of the obligations currently by the existing Code, scrap the existing TCP Industry Guideline as well as the Code Administration and Compliance Scheme, and impose a number of new obligations on the industry.
The major changes under the revised Code include:
- a new requirement for retailers to be able to provide consumers with a summary of offer prior to sale
- prohibitions on certain content in advertising, eg use of the term "unlimited" to describe usage entitlements where ordinary usage within Australia is not genuinely unlimited and not subject to exclusions, and use of the terms "no exceptions", "no exclusions" or "no catches" to describe an offer where there are not genuinely no exceptions. These restrictions have been inserted along with other restrictions on advertising content which are similar to the restrictions imposed under the terms of the undertaking given to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) by Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Hutchison Australia under section 87B of the former Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) in 2009
- a new requirement to provide unit pricing information in certain advertising mediums
- a prohibition on using the term "cap" to describe new offers unless they are "hard-capped" offers
- a shortening of the allowable delay for back-billing, requirements to provide additional content on bills and to provide historic billing information free of charge for up to 24 months after a bill was first issued
- compulsory provision of usage information to customers for calls, SMS and data to allow greater spend management and reduce "bill shock"
- new complaint handling requirements, including shorter complaint resolution timeframes, a requirement to advise customers of complaint outcomes and a requirement to issue each customer who complains with a unique reference number to enable them to track the progress of their complaint
- the introduction of a new independent body to be called "Communications Compliance" to monitor TCP Code compliance with the power to refer non-compliance to the ACMA.
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