Customer Service Guarantee for fixed voice set to continue

Media Release from The Hon Michelle Rowland MP, Minister for Communications

Media Release | 07 June 2023

The Minister for Communications, the Hon Michelle Rowland MP, today announced her intention to continue the Customer Service Guarantee (CSG), which regulates the timeframes for connection, repairs and appointments for fixed telephone services.
 
The Minister will now develop new instruments in consultation with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to give effect to this decision. The intention to continue this long-standing retail consumer protection follows a thematic review of the CSG undertaken earlier in the year, which was due to sunset on 1 October 2023.

Continuing the CSG for a minimum of three years, with necessary updating and some minor revisions, will give consumers on Telstra’s legacy networks ongoing protections. At the same time, complementary protections at the wholesale level will be bedded down while longer-term arrangements are being considered.

Submissions to the thematic review set out the varying perspectives of stakeholders on the CSG but agreed that timeframes for connections, repairs and appointments remain important for telecommunications consumers. This is clearly the case where Telstra is providing services on its legacy copper and wireless networks outside NBN Co fixed line footprint.
 
The submissions also placed a strong emphasis on these matters being dealt with effectively at the network or wholesale level, with mixed views about the long-term need for retail CSG arrangements in this future environment. The Government will continue to consider the long-term regulatory consumer safeguards framework.
 
Submissions and information on the thematic review of the CSG can be found at Thematic Review of the Customer Service Guarantee (CSG) | Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts