The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network calls for all telcos to uphold the same requirement as Telstra in providing products intended explicitly for low-income consumers.

ACCAN is a consumer advocacy group. The group recently released research findings revealing that nine in ten Australian community organisations, or 90%, believe telcos could do more to foster the connectivity and telecommunications needs of low-income groups.

According to ACCAN chair Teresa Corbin, currently, Telstra is the only telco legislatively required to offer a product targeted at low-income households. This is under the telco’s carrier licence conditions.

“Given that our research shows that these sorts of support can play an important role in addressing the needs of low-income households, we’d like to see this become an industry-wide obligation,” she said.

“We have been publicly and privately advocating for affordable phone and internet services for over a decade. The fact is that the market is not delivering to assist lower-income households to connect to this modern essential service, so it’s time for the government to act.”

Because of this, the advocacy group is calling on the federal government to review affordability measures offered by telcos. Unfortunately, this means developing new regulatory requirements intended to provide affordable services specifically for low-income consumers.

ACCAN commissioned the Action Market Research to assess the industry measures in place to assist low-income households. In this case, it looked into discounted services, fee exemptions, or free data. 

The research results revealed that demand and need for affordability assistance programs are more significant than their availability. For this reason, a comprehensive review of the telecom industry is already essential. This can be attributed to the fact that there have been various structural changes in the telecommunications industry and that the existing affordability measures were designed when Telstra was the omnipresent telecom provider.

As part of the research, a survey of low-income households was conducted. Results showed that 25% of respondents who desired to connect to another telecom service had not done so. This was because there were more important expenses to take care of instead of spending for telecom service. In the same manner, 25% of the population surveyed said that they simply could not afford this. Furthermore, the same research revealed that almost 60% of the respondents encountered difficulty paying for a broadband service or a mobile service with data.