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Australian Government - Australian Communications and Media Authority

Mobile premium services – information for industry

Mobile premium services, which include both premium SMS/MMS and mobile portal services, are content information and entertainment services that are delivered to a mobile phone that cost more than a standard SMS.

These services include:

  • mobile ringtones
  • mobile wallpaper
  • games
  • chat services
  • competitions
  • horoscopes
  • age-restricted content
  • news, sports and weather updates
  • music and video clips
  • voting
  • directory services
  • financial information.

Mobile premium services are offered using numbers starting with ‘191’, ‘193’-‘197’ and ‘199’.

Regulation of Mobile premium services in Australia

Premium SMS/MMS services which use numbers with the prefixes 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197 and 199 are subject to the Mobile Premium Services Code C637:2011. This code was developed by Communications Alliance Ltd and registered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

Content suppliers have obligations under the Code to resolve customer complaints and refer customers to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) if the customer is not satisfied with the providers’ response.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has a compliance monitoring and enforcement role. In undertaking this role, the ACMA intends to identify:

  • potential breaches of the code;
  • recurring and systemic problems with services; and
  • the providers that are responsible for problematic services.

Regulation applicable to Industry includes:

Other useful links:

 

Last update: 27 November 2012 14:34