Date: 11 March 2026
Location: via MS Teams
Chair: Samantha Yorke, Authority Member and CCF Chair
Overview
On 11 March 2026, members of the ACMA’s Consumer Consultative Forum (CCF) met to discuss:
- key telecommunications issues affecting rural, regional and remote consumers
- recent policy and regulatory developments
- priorities for 2026.
The ACMA heard of CCF members’ concerns, including that:
- Consumers are being given unclear or incorrect information about their options, including that they must move off copper services, change their phone number, or buy higher-cost VoIP or satellite voice plans.
- The design and management of technology transitions is removing redundancy for consumers (particularly in terms of voice capability) or shifting costs previously incurred by telcos onto the consumers, including additional energy costs or demands. Members expressed concern that the lessons of 3G shutdown do not appear to have been learned.
- The increased move to, and promotion of, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite services does not reflect the reality of the lived consumer experience with these services, including of frequent outages and weather impacts.
Readily available, clear messaging is needed about how to access Triple Zero and what to expect when doing so. Members noted the value of trusted and independent help provided by the Regional Tech Hub.
The CCF also discussed the importance of compliance with the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Standard and noted an update from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts on AusAlert – the state and territory emergency alert system.
Members raised ongoing concerns about mis-selling and credit assessments, and emerging concerns about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly when consumers are not told it is being used and how information is collected and stored.
We provided the CCF with updates on:
- Work to make a mobile coverage mapping standard, including next steps following consultation and publication of submissions.
- Telecommunications consumer safeguards and ACMA priorities, including:
- the revised draft Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code
- consumer awareness work (including new consumer information on Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence protections)
- Triple Zero, emergency calling and outage notification work
- scams disruption work (including the Sender ID Register)
- the consultation on the ACMA’s compliance priorities.
Next meeting: 24 July 2026
Disclaimer: Prepared with support from Generative AI. All content has been carefully reviewed and validated by ACMA staff.