CommsDay Story of the Week – from CommsDay, Friday 27 March 2026
This week’s CommsDay Story of the Week is an ongoing tale, as most of them are, that has perhaps reached a decisive moment. The article concerns the ACMA’s decision to directly regulate telecommunications consumer protection through an enforceable standard, rather than through a Code developed by the industry. The reference to “binning” the Code in the heading of the article may be an overstatement. The best way for ACMA to proceed might well be to build on those parts of the draft Code that it can rather than start from scratch on the regulatory content. We would be very surprised if this were not the case. As well, we are re-publishing an analysis / editorial on the matter from today’s CommsDay by Grahame Lynch. The editorial is thoughtful, as one would expect, but it does raise the question about the extent, and in what circumstances, small operators might be excused from complying with consumer protections and delivering on regulated consumer entitlements simply because they are small, with limited resources.
ACMA bins revised TCP code, begins work on direct regulation
The Australian Communications and Media Authority will move to direct regulation of telco consumer protections after declining to register a revised industry consumer code, positioning the shift as the completion of a multi-year transition already underway.
The regulator said it would determine an “enforceable” industry standard to replace the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code, the primary framework governing areas including advertising, responsible selling, treatment of vulnerable consumers and credit and debt management since 2008.
ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said overnight the move reflected both rising consumer reliance on telecommunications and growing risks when protections fail.
“Consumer reliance on telecommunications is far greater today than when the current code was made in 2019. The harms to consumers are also greater when services are unavailable or protections are lacking,” she said, pointing to recent network outages, Triple Zero disruptions, issues linked to the 3G shutdown and shortcomings in responsible selling as factors undermining conϐidence in the sector.
O’Loughlin framed the decision as the next step in a broader regulatory shift, noting ACMA had already moved key safeguards out of industry codes and into enforceable standards in areas including complaints handling, financial hardship and domestic and family violence. “Now is the time to move the remaining consumer protections into direct regulation so that expectations are consistent, obligations are clear and are backed by stronger and more immediately available enforcement powers for the regulator,” she said.
Under section 125 of the Telecommunications Act 1997, ACMA has commenced the process to develop the new standard, with public consultation to follow.
The existing 2019 code will remain in force until the standard is ϐinalised, at which point it will lapse.
The decision followed a code development process led by the Australian Telecommunications Alliance since 2023. While acknowledging “extensive and constructive work” by the industry, ACMA said it did not have before it a code capable of registration and determined that direct regulation was now required. ACMA did not release its exact objections to the code.
ATA chief executive Luke Coleman said the sector would work constructively with the regulator as it develops the standard, positioning the outcome as part of efforts to rebuild consumer trust.
“Every Australian relies on the services provided by telcos every day, and as an in- dustry, we are committed to rebuilding trust and confidence in the essential connectivity we provide,” he said.
Coleman pointed to declining complaint levels and long-term price trends as evidence of industry performance, noting complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman had fallen to below 60,000 annually, equivalent to around 0.1% of the nation’s 42 million mobile and broadband services.
He also said telecommunications was “the one and only sector” to deliver improved services at lower prices over the past decade, with prices down more than 20% relative to the Consumer Price Index since 2016.
The ATA submitted the revised code last November. At the time, the ATA said it “directly addresses each of the issues raised by ACMA in its notice of deϐiciencies and its statement of reasons for rejecting the draft code submitted in May 2025.”
The revision saw a complete restructuring of the code to clarify obligations, remove ambiguous language and convert relevant guidance into enforceable requirements. Gilbert & Tobin was commissioned to undertake “a comprehensive, end-to- end rewrite of the code focussed on improving clarity, accessibility, and enforceability.” In the end, this wasn’t enough for ACMA.
Grahame Lynch
ANALYSIS by Grahame Lynch
If you break the TCP Code, you own the outcome
There was never much doubt that the Australian Communications and Media Authority would eventually decide to take the pen off industry and write the rules itself.
The regulator’s own press release gives the game away: the optics for telecommunications providers have been poor. Outages, scandals and network closures have become rolling national media events. In that environment, a regulator that does not change the game rules starts to look like a spectator.
But let’s dispense with one of the more convenient ϐictions that has underpinned this shift. The Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code was never “self-regulation,” as described by consumer groups, in any meaningful sense. That line has been repeated so often it now passes without challenge, but it does not stand up.
Go back to the first TCP Code review in the early 2010s.
The steering committee was stacked with government and consumer representation: a departmental official, ACMA, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, two consumer advocates including the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, and just two industry representatives. Two from seven. Less industry capture, more industry attendance.
If this was self-regulation, it was a strange version of it—the latest revision process was overseen by a retired regulator and informed by a review committee dominated by government and consumer groups.
The move to direct regulation is therefore less a rupture than a relabelling exercise. The substance is already there. What changes is who holds the pen — and, more importantly, who gets the credit.
Trust has been leaking out of institutions, political parties and corporates across the board. In that environment, the distinction between a code and a regulation is irrelevant. What matters is that the regulator is seen to be in charge.
Indeed, the last draft of the revised code — the one rejected overnight— was in practice anything but permissive. It was detailed, highly prescriptive and, in places, overtly punitive. So much so that Starlink — Australia’s most worldly telco — regarded it as the most onerous framework it had encountered anywhere on the planet.
There is a risk here that in moving to demonstrate some muscle, ACMA ends up rediscovering some fairly basic truths about regulation.
Direct regulation sounds neat and simple. It rarely is.
The first problem is informational. Regulators do not run networks or deal with customers at scale. They abstract and generalise. That gap between abstraction and lived reality is where things tend to go awry.
Take the new regulatory requirement for telcos to have their domestic violence policies validated by specialist organisations, especially those which focus on vulnerable cohorts such as First Nations or LGBTIA communities.
On paper, it reads as empathetic and reasonable. But in practice, many of those organisations have little interest in becoming de facto compliance auditors for telecommunications providers.
There is a broader asymmetry at play. Regulators like to complain about their own resource constraints — and yes, efficiency dividends do bite. But they are not the same constraints faced by community organisations or small providers. The former operate on peppercorn income, volunteered time and clients in crisis. For the latter, compliance with laws designed to regulate the behaviour of ASX blue chips is not an administrative layer; it is a cost centre with real trade-offs given small telcos are price takers for their inputs with poor scale economies.
Which brings us to the part of the market that tends to get forgotten.
The large carriers will cope, if reluctantly. They have the balance sheets, the legal teams and increasingly the automated compliance capability to absorb whatever is handed down. More to the point, they have already been moving. The recent spate of outages, the 3G shutdown and heightened scrutiny on cyber resilience did not go unnoticed internally. If anything, it accelerated transformation, smoothed processes and lifted oversight.
But the long tail — the resellers, the smaller carriers, the operators that provide competitive pressure — will look at this with some unease. For them, increased compliance is not incremental. It is existential.
It would be a perverse outcome if a reform agenda aimed at improving consumer outcomes ended up narrowing the range of available providers.
Complaint volumes to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman have been trending down. That does not mean the system is working perfectly, but it does suggest it was not moving backwards across the board.
The risk is not that direct regulation fails. It is that it succeeds in form while quietly reshaping the market in unintended directions and with not wholly positive results. Those cheering on this change need to remember that if you break something, you al so own it.
Grahame Lynch
IN TODAY’S COMMSDAY (Friday 27 March 2026)
The Australian Communications and Media Authority will move to direct regulation of telco consumer protections after declining to register a revised industry consumer code, positioning the shift as the completion of a multi-year transition already underway.
GRAHAME LYNCH says that if you break the TCP Code and co-regulation, you will own whatever results.
The Triple Zero Custodian within the Department of Communications is set to introduce new performance reporting requirements for telecommunications providers, as it seeks greater visibility over metrics including call transfers to the Emergency Call Person (Telstra) and post-fault welfare checks.
Infratil has raised its FY27 outlook for its CDC Data Centres business by nearly 10% as a result of ongoing strong demand for data centre capacity.
IoT Alliance Australia has rebranded as Connected Technology Alliance, launching a new charter and strategic plan aimed at shaping Australia’s digital ecosystem.
Weebit Nano has moved to raise up to $105m through a fully underwritten institutional placement and associated offers, as the ASX-listed semiconductor developer looks to accelerate commercialisation of its resistive memory technology and expand into AI-related applications.
The federal government has sharpened its social media minimum age framework, moving to explicitly target platform features it says are designed to drive compulsive use among young Australians, as political and legal pressure mounts on its broader online safety agenda.
Jeff Bezos’s space venture Blue Origin has filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission for a new constellation of 51,600 orbital data centre satellites, just a week after its sister firm Amazon Leo raised concern over SpaceX’s similar, albeit much larger, million-ODC network.
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