The report of the Regional Telecommunications Inquiry (RTI), Connecting Regional Australia, was released on 8 November 2002 and provided a detailed assessment of the adequacy of telecommunications services in regional, rural and remote Australia.
The Australian Government responded to the inquiry's recommendations on 25 June 2003, accepting all 39 recommendations.
In a number of areas, the inquiry response required Telstra to enter into a formal undertaking with the government to improve service adequacy in regional Australia.
The government has also imposed a licence condition on Telstra, which commenced operation on 9 October 2003, to provide minimum dial-up internet data rate of 19.2 kbit/s or equivalent throughput across its fixed line network.
The response to the inquiry also foreshadowed that the government intends to conduct regular reviews of the adequacy of regional telecommunications services, which was enabled through legislation in 2006.
The ACMA has an ongoing role in monitoring and reporting on Telstra's network performance under the licence condition and undertakings.
For further information about the ACMA's role in implementing and continuing to monitor RTI Recommendations, please select from the categories of recommendations set out below:
- Fixed telephone services (Recs 2.3, 2.5, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10)
- Pair gain systems (Rec 2.7)
- Payphone services (Recs 2.11, 2.12, 2.13, 2.14)
- Mobile phone services (Rec 3.3)
- Internet Assistance Program (Recs 4.1 and 4.2)
- Remote Indigenous communities (Recs 5.1 and 5.3)
- Consumer safeguards and monitoring and reporting (Recs 7.1, 7.2, 7.3)
- Regular reviews of regional telecommunications services (Rec 9.6)
