Background
To support recent legislative reforms aimed at strengthening consumer safeguards in the Australian telecommunications industry, the minister made the Telecommunications Universal Service Obligation (Public Consultation on the Location or Removal of Payphones) Determination 2011, which commenced on 1 January 2012.
This Determination sets out the public consultation processes that a Primary Universal Service Provider (PUSP, currently Telstra) must follow before installing, removing or relocating a payphone from a particular site. Division 2 of Part 2 specifically applies when a PUSP proposes to remove the last remaining payphone from a site.
In these cases, a PUSP is required to prepare and publish a payphone consultation document (PCD) that must comply with any ACMA guidelines that set out the format for such a document.
The ACMA has prepared draft Payphone (Consultation Document) Guidelines (the PCD guidelines). Public comment is sought as to whether the proposed PCD guidelines provide adequate guidance on the required format of its PCD.
To provide context for the PCD guidelines, the ACMA has prepared the following diagram—Contextual application of the PCD Guidelines – Summary Diagram.
The closing date for submissions is 5.00 pm Friday 3 August 2012. Submissions received after this date may not be considered by the ACMA.
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