Comms Alliance starts mobile premium services code review

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 14 September 2010 09:11

IT Policy - Regulation

Communications Alliance has named Jane Smith as the independent chair for the revision of its Mobile Premium Services (MPS) Code.

The code came into effect on 1 July 2009 after being registered by the ACMA and with the proviso that it be reviewed one year later.

A code review committee that comprised representatives of industry, the appropriate regulatory and government bodies and the industry's peak consumer representative body, ACCAN has now completed that review and has decided to revise the code.

A new working committee chaired by Smith will now be convened to develop a revised code for presentation to the ACMA in the first half of 2011.

The Code governs industry behaviour in respect of mobile premium services, which have been a vehicle for numerous scams and ACMA actions against the perpetrators of these scams together with calls from the ACCC for less misleading adverting of such services.

In one instance the ACMA fined two companies more than $15m under the Spam Act for attempting to lure consumers to sign up for expensive premium mobile services.

Services covered include ring-tones, wallpapers, chat services and other content and service-based applications.

Comms Alliance is now seeking nominations for people to be elected the committee to review the code and its accompanying guideline. The committee will comprise consumer representatives, representatives of the telecommunications carrier sector and representatives of the aggregator/content provider sector.

Its role will be to revise the code within the confines of the stipulated terms of reference (which have not yet been released); to produce draft outputs for the purposes of consultation with the ACMA, a public comment phase, and finally for submission to Communications Alliance board for approval for submission to the ACMA for registration, and to endeavour to achieve this via consensus.

Comms Alliance has separately embarked on a revision of its other main consumer code, the Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) Code - a project that will also conclude in the first half of 2011.

Communications Alliance, CEO, John Stanton, said Smith was well placed to lead the revision, given her extensive experience in both the content and telecommunications fields. "Jane spent nine years as head of the NSW Office of Film and Television. She has occupied senior strategic roles with the ABC, has worked for Hugh Jackman in the film production field and has been the telecommunications policy adviser to a federal minister for communications, after beginning her career with Telecom Australia [now Telstra]."