Action on telco consumer protections: April to June 2026

Compliance with Triple Zero and public safety requirements

On 30 June 2026 new rules commenced 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 on 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 to the community and stakeholders. The ACMA will be assessing telco compliance with these requirements. 

We continued investigations into telco compliance with the emergency call service regulations. Our investigations relate to outages or incidents on the Telstra, Optus and TPG networks.

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

The ACMA continued to prioritise enforcing compliance with the Telecommunications (Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Consumer Protections) Industry Standard 2025 (the DFSV Standard) during the quarter, including new responsibilities that commenced for all telcos during the first half of 2026.

Protecting consumers affected by domestic, family and sexual violence remains an ACMA compliance and enforcement priority. The ACMA is examining whether telcos are meeting key responsibilities designed to protect the safety, privacy and continuity of telecommunications services for consumers affected by domestic, family or sexual violence. During the quarter, the ACMA undertook a range of compliance and enforcement actions under the DFSV Standard, including opening 8 compliance assessments and 4 investigations, finalising 1 compliance assessment and progressing 2 investigations. 

The ACMA continues to assess intelligence and information obtained through compliance activities to detect consumer harms. We will act at any stage to address practices that may cause or compound consumer experiences of vulnerability. 

Guidance for industry about complying with the DFSV Standard is available on the ACMA website here.

Enduring compliance and enforcement priority: Consumers experiencing vulnerability

Financial Hardship

Compliance with the Telecommunications (Financial Hardship) Industry Standard 2024 (Financial Hardship Standard) remains an ACMA compliance and enforcement priority.

The Financial Hardship Standard continues to improve safeguards for customers experiencing financial difficulty by requiring telcos to:

• establish and promote their financial hardship policies
• identify customers experiencing financial hardship
• provide a better range of options for assistance
• prioritise keeping customers connected.

During the quarter, we continued to assess industry compliance with responsibilities under the Financial Hardship Standard as part of our enduring compliance and enforcement priority to support consumers experiencing vulnerability. This work is focused on identifying and addressing practices that may prevent customers experiencing financial difficulty from receiving appropriate support and staying connected.  

We completed 1 compliance assessment and finalised 1 investigation, while progressing additional investigations into telcos' compliance with their responsibilities. The compliance assessment identified concerns regarding compliance with financial hardship responsibilities relating to the identification of financial hardship customers and commencement of credit management action. This matter progressed to a formal investigation. We also concluded an investigation into website information requirements, securing compliance improvements through regulatory engagement including a compliance warning letter.

The ACMA continues to assess intelligence and information obtained through compliance activities to detect consumer harms. We will act at any stage to address practices that may cause or compound consumer experiences of vulnerability.

Guidance for industry about complying with the Financial Hardship Standard is available on the ACMA website here.

Customer Service Guarantee compliance

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

Complaints handling compliance

Following our compliance sweep of telco websites assessing compliance with complaints-handling requirements, during the quarter 18 telcos responded positively to the ACMA’s compliance contact and made improvements to information published on their websites to better support consumers seeking to make complaints.

We also progressed a number of compliance assessments during the quarter, closing one assessment, and requiring 5 telcos to take action to address identified compliance concerns. Compliance letters were issued to secure compliance with regulatory responsibilities, with provider’s implementation of corrective actions to be monitored by the ACMA.

Throughout this quarter we have been developing a draft Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) industry standard for public consultation. The new TCP Standard, when finalised by the ACMA, will replace the current industry-developed TCP industry Code and provide stronger safeguards for telco consumers. Public consultation on the standard begins on the 29^th of September 2026 and will be made available on the ACMA website.

Between 22 May and 2 June 2026, the ACMA held a public consultation on amending the Telecommunications (Customer Service Guarantee) Standard 2023 and the Telecommunications (Customer Service Guarantee) Record-Keeping Rules 2023 to extend these rules by 3 years until the 31 August 2029. This followed a direction from the Minister for Communications for the ACMA to implement these changes. The CSG Standard sets out how quickly telcos must connect and repair landline voice services and timeframes for keeping customer appointments. Details about the consultation are on the ACMA website.

On 28 May 2026 the ACMA de-registered the C637:2019 Mobile Premium Service (MPS) Industry Code. Mobile premium services are no longer active. This followed an application to de-register the Code from the Australian Telecommunications Alliance. 

We collected and published the January to March 2026 quarter telco complaints-handling performance data. The data shows that Australian telcos received 184,774 complaints during the quarter, 12.1% 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 March 2025.

It took telcos on average 5.3 days to resolve complaints, which is 13.1% down on the same period last year.

The proportion of complaints requiring intervention by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman increased slightly quarter-on-quarter from 7.1% to 7.2%.