Action on telco consumer protections: January to March 2026

Compliance with Triple Zero and public safety requirements

During the quarter we updated rules in the Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024 requiring telcos to publish network outage registers containing information about each major outage and significant local outage across all their networks that was resolved on or after 31 March 2026. 

The registers must present outage information in a consistent way to improve transparency and support analysis of outage trends. These new requirements are designed to provide greater clarity about telco outages for a range of stakeholders, including the Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Service Organisations.

We opened 2 investigations into telco compliance with the emergency call service regulations. Our investigations relate to:

• a fault with Telstra’s IP Multimedia Subsystem voice node that disrupted emergency calls
  
  • an intermittent national outage affecting Optus mobile voice services that resulted in 4 failed or dropped emergency calls.

Enforcing new rules to support telco consumers affected by domestic and family violence

Key protections under the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Standard (the Standard) commenced on 1 January 2026 for large telcos.  This includes new responsibilities for telcos (under section 29 of the Standard) to notify affected persons and the ACMA within 2 days of a telco becoming aware that the personal information of an affected person has been accessed or disclosed without authorisation. 

In January 2026, we updated our guidance for telcos on the Standard. This guidance includes privacy breach notification templates to assist telcos in providing notifications to the ACMA that are clear, consistent and support compliance. The guidance was also updated to reflect changes to the definition of an urgent complaint in the Complaints Handling Standard. 

During the quarter, we opened 17 compliance assessments following our recent compliance sweep of 50 telco websites to assess compliance with section 16 of the Standard (telco responsibility to publish support information for affected consumers). We received and assessed telcos’ responses to 17 set-date compliance letters sent in December 2025 regarding concerns identified in our sweep.

We also opened 5 additional assessments to examine potential non-compliance with personal information disclosure responsibilities under section 29 of the Standard. A further investigation was opened into a provider’s conduct under section 29 of the Standard as we are concerned that it has failed to comply with all elements of that section. 

Enduring compliance and enforcement priority: Consumers experiencing vulnerability

Financial Hardship

We issued section 521 Notices to a CSP as part of our investigation into allegations of non-compliance with the Financial Hardship Standard. 

We have separate ongoing investigations into several telcos’ compliance with the Financial Hardship Standard.

Complaints handling

Following our compliance sweep of 15 telco websites in late 2025, we opened 4 compliance assessments during the quarter with set-date compliance letters to be issued.

In the quarter we opened an investigation into a CSP’s compliance with the Complaints Handling Standard. This followed a systemic issue referral from the TIO.

On 24 February 2026, we issued a formal warning to Skymesh for failing to comply with telco industry rules on complaints record-keeping, following an investigation which found that Skymesh failed to meet its obligations on 20 occasions between July 2022 and October 2024. 

On 12 February 2026, we issued a remedial direction to Best Telecom after an investigation found that Best Telecom had failed to refund a customer in accordance with a binding decision made by the TIO. The remedial direction included a requirement for the telco to refund the customer in accordance with the TIO’s decision and to establish a training program for staff responsible for handling complaints.

In the quarter, we announced that we will determine an enforceable industry standard under section 125 of the Telco Act to replace the industry-developed Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code. This decision followed an extensive Code development and consultation process commenced in 2023 by the telco industry, through the ATA and its predecessor. We have commenced the process to determine the industry standard, which will include a period of public consultation. 

We completed 1 investigation into applying the Customer Service Guarantee to a bundled voice and internet service with a compliance letter issued to Telstra.

The Consumer Consultation Forum met on 6 March 2026 for the first meeting of 2026. Members discussed key communications issues affecting rural, regional and remote consumers highlighting ongoing concerns about:

•  technology transitions removing redundancy and shifting responsibility and cost to consumers
• consumers being given unclear or incorrect information about their options when transitioning, and
• the increased move to and promotion of LEOsat services as a solution which does not reflect lived consumer experience due to frequent outages and weather impacts. 

Members also reported ongoing concerns about mis-selling and credit assessments and emerging concerns about disclosure of the use of Artificial Intelligence, including information collection and storage. 

We provided updates on the mobile coverage mapping standard, consumer awareness and education activities and work on Triple Zero, emergency calling and outage notifications and scams disruptions including the Sender ID Register.

A Numbering Advisory Committee meeting was held on 25 March 2026. The committee discussed progress on the workplan, including future plans for the Numbering System as well as issues concerning international number spoofing.

We published the October to December 2025 quarter telco complaints-handling performance data. The data shows that Australian telcos received 182,292 complaints during the quarter, 14.4% lower compared to the corresponding quarter last year. 

The average number of complaints to telcos per 10,000 services was 40, which was 11.1% lower than December 2024.

It took telcos on average 5.9 days to resolve complaints, which is 4.8% down on the same period last year.

Notably the proportion of complaints requiring intervention by the TIO increased quarter-on-quarter from 6.9% to 7.3%.

During the quarter we undertook an assurance program targeting different areas of concern for the ACMA regarding provider application of the RKR definitions in practice, data categorisation and its extraction for submission to the ACMA, as well as an understanding of their internal complaints handling processes.

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