ACMA warns VoIP providers to keep customer addresses current

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:06

IT Policy - Regulation

The ACMA has issued formal warning to 11 VoIP service providers for failing to ensure that their customer records accurately reflect the residential addresses of customers.

It follows the ACMA, in May, accepting court enforceable undertakings from one service provider, Soul, for failing to keep its database up to date with customer address details (the offence occurred prior to the acquisition by TPG).

The ACMA says the results of its 2009-10 audit show that 96.3 percent of the 54.8 million address records in the IPND are regarded as having high or good useability for the purpose of an emergency response. This is up from 89.2 percent in the 2006 audit.

The audit checks the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) records against the records in the Geo-coded National Address File database managed by PSMA Australia Limited.

The ACMA says that, following this audit and other compliance work it formally warned 11 providers of VoIP services for failing to meeting their IPND requirements under the Emergency Call Service Determination.

ACMA chairman, Chris Chapman, said: "Emergency service organisations are automatically provided with the address of a telephone service at the time a triple zero call is made. The accuracy of that information can prove vital in responding quickly to an emergency.

Carriage service providers providing telephone services are required under the Determination to provide the IPND manager with names and addresses of their customers. They must also keep this information as up to date as practicable. The ruling also applies to mobile services.

The IPND is a telecommunications industry-wide database of all listed and unlisted public numbers and their associated customer data. It is managed by Telstra as a condition of its carrier licence.