Can complaints on mobile content be cut?
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The Mobile Premium Service Industry has a poor track record. There were 15,653 complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman last year. It's a scourge according to Alan Asher from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network.
On 1 July this year the new Mobile Premium Services Code was introduced. It sounds like it's had a good impact, but is it enough?
As you'll hear on today's Twisted Wire, there's wide recognition that some shonky operators do exist, but there are also the problems of conveying detailed terms and conditions to a customer on a small screen device.
With the ACMA now breathing down the industry's neck, moves are finally being made to bring the problem under control. In particular, Telstra and Optus have outsourced the monitoring of services and will, hopefully, cut-off suppliers that repeatedly break the new code.
It sounds like it's too late, though, to stop more regulation from ACMA. Its consideration of enforced default call barring is just one of several likely new regulatory measures to be faced by the industry next year.
In today's program you'll hear from:
- Alan Asher, chief executive of ACCAN, the recently formed Australian Communications Consumer Action Network
- Matt Costello, co-founder of content aggregator 5th Finger
- Ann Hurley, CEO of the Communications Alliance
- Vince Humphries, manager of ACMA's Education & Telephone Content section
- Colin Matthews, CEO at compliance monitoring firm WMC Global
- Gary Smith, general manager regulatory compliance at Optus
What else needs to be done to reduce the complaints about premium mobile content? Add your thoughts in the Talkback section at the end of this post.