Commonwealth Numbered Regulations - Explanatory Statements

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS (REMOTE AREA REBATE) REGULATIONS 1998 1998 NO. 339

Statutory Rules 1998 No. 339

Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts

Telecommunications Act 1997

Telecommunications (Remote Area Rebate) Regulations 1998

Section 594 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (the Act) provides that the Governor-General may make regulations:

(a)       required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed; or

(b)       necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.

Subsection 226(6) of the Act requires the Minister to take all reasonable steps to ensure that regulations are in force for the purpose of giving benefits to designated customers. Designated customers are defined in sub-section 226(1) of the Act as customers of carriage service providers who are not in standard zones. Subsection 226(2) provides that the benefits relate to charges for calls made using a standard telephone service and that they be comparable with benefits given to eligible customers under section 223 of the Act (which deals with the requirement to provide an untimed local call option, based on the standard zones which existed before 1 July 1991 when Telstra was the only telecommunications provider).

The purpose of the regulations is to require the primary carrier with whom the customer has a primary service agreement to pay a comparable benefit in the form of a rebate of up to $160 per calendar year off the cost of remote area calls. A primary service agreement is an agreement for the supply of the standard telephone service that includes the provision of remote area calls, whether it be a standard form of agreement or an individual contract between the carrier and the end-customer.

Remote area calls are voice or data calls to destinations in the customer's remote charging zone and to the customer's community service town. Calls by customers with a disability are implicitly included by the definition of the purpose of the standard telephone service in section 17 of the Telecommunications Act 1997.

In order to simplify the payment of rebate by restricting payment to one carrier at any period of time, calls made using an over-ride code are not eligible for rebate. Also only calls to geographic numbers are eligible for rebate, excluding calls to special services numbers.

The regulations will impose obligations on carriers with regard to their end-customers. Obligations are not imposed on resellers. However it is expected that the regulations will have a flow-on effect to resellers because they would need to go some way towards matching carriers' prices, including the rebate, to be competitive in the market.

The regulations require rebate to be paid automatically and at least quarterly. In addition, they require rebate to be deducted from the bill before the customer is given the bill, if practicable.

If a customer changes carrier, the regulations require that the new carrier is required to pay rebate on a pro-rata basis according to the billing period when the primary service agreement has effect. As the previous carrier is not required to pass information to the new carrier about the amount of rebate paid in the calendar year, the provision will minimise any rebate paid in the year over $160.

Details of the Telecommunications (Remote Area Rebate) Regulations 1998 are as follows:

Regulation 1 - Name of regulations

Regulation 1 provides for the citation of the Telecommunications (Remote Area Rebate) Regulations 1998.

Regulation 2 - Commencement

Regulation 2 provides that the regulations commence on the day they are gazetted.

Regulation 3 - Definitions - the dictionary etc

Regulation 3 explains that the dictionary at the end of the regulations defines certain words and expressions used in the regulations and also refers to definitions made within the regulations.

Regulation 4 - Object of regulations

Regulation 4 provides that the object of the regulations is to set out a scheme to give benefits to designated customers, in accordance with section 226 of the Act.

Regulation 5 - Primary service agreements and agreed carriers

Regulation 5 specifies that the rebate is payable to designated customers by the carrier that has the written contractual relationship with the customer for the supply of the standard telephone service that includes the provision of remote area calls. In practice, the written agreement can be either a standard form of agreement if the carrier uses that form of agreement, or an individual contract.

Regulation 6 - Community service towns

Regulation 6 specifies that the relevant community service town for calls to which the rebate is payable is the town designated for the customer by Telstra prior to 1 January 1998. If the customer and carrier agree on a different community service town, then regulation 6 specifies that this different town is the relevant community service town.

Regulation 7 - Remote charging zones

Regulation 7 specifies that the relevant remote charging zone for calls to which the rebate is payable is the zone designated for the customer by Telstra prior to 1 January 1998. Telstra terms this zone the outer extended zone. If the carrier and customer agree on a different remote charging zone, then regulation 7 specifies that this different zone is the relevant remote charging zone. The remote charging zone excludes any part of the zone that is a standard zone (for example, Telstra's inner extended zones, because untimed local calls are provided in standard zones) and the community service town (calls to which are included in regulation 6).

Regulation 8 - Standard telephone services - data carriage

Regulation 8 specifies that rebate is also payable for data calls by residential/charity customers using the standard telephone service.

Regulation 9 - Remote area calls

Regulation 9 identifies remote area calls. They include calls described by Telstra as pastoral calls and calls by customers using other carriers that are described in the primary service agreement between the customer and carrier that correspond to pastoral calls.

Regulation 10 - Eligible remote area calls

Regulation 10 specifies that remote area calls that meet the requirements of Division 2 (regulations 10 to 13) are calls eligible for rebate. The regulation excludes calls using mobile services or satellite services unless the services are used to fulfil the universal service obligation.

Regulation 11 - Standard telephone services

Regulation 11 provides that calls eligible for rebate must be made using a standard telephone service directly connected to a public switched telephone network. This regulation has the effect that calls over other networks such as the integrated services digital network are not eligible for rebate.

Regulation 12 - Called-numbers

Regulation 12 provides that only calls to geographic numbers, defined in the Numbering Plan under the Telecommunications Act 1997, are eligible for rebate. This regulation has the effect that calls to special services numbers such as 13 numbers are not eligible for rebate.

Regulation 13 - Agreed carriers

Regulation 13 provides that calls eligible for rebate must be provided by the customer's agreed carrier. This excludes calls made by the customer using an override code to access another provider because it would be administratively too complex to have more than the one primary provider paying rebate at any one time.

Regulation 14 - Entitlement to rebate

Regulation 14 specifies that a designated customer is entitled to rebate from his/her agreed carrier off each remote area call, equal to the charge for each call, based on calls made in a calendar year.

Regulation 15 - Billing periods

Regulation 15 provides that an agreed carrier must determine a billing period in a calendar year for which it will charge the customer for remote area calls and work out whether rebate is payable. The regulation specifies that the billing period must not exceed three months.

Regulation 16 - Charging information

Regulation 16 specifies that the bill or account must state the number of days in the billing period, the number of days in the billing period that the carrier is the agreed carrier and the amount of rebate payable if it is practicable to work it out before the bill is forwarded to the customer.

Regulation 17 - Eligible remote area calls for first billing period

Regulation 17 provides that calls made by a designated customer during 1998 and charged to the customer are to be taken into account by the agreed carrier in calculating the remote area calls eligible for a rebate.

Regulation 18 - Amount of rebate payable by first agreed carrier in a year

Regulation 18 requires the first agreed carrier in a calendar year to pay rebate off each remote area call up to the value of 5 160 for the calendar year whilst it is the agreed carrier.

Regulation 19 - Amounts of rebate payable by later agreed carriers in a year

Regulation 19 provides that, if a customer changes his/her agreed carrier, the new carrier is required to pay rebate on a prorata basis according to the number of days in the billing period when its primary service agreement has effect. This approach avoids the practical difficulty of carriers having to exchange information about the amount of rebate already paid in the calendar year, including any commercial-in-confidence information. At the same time, this approach restricts the amount in excess of $160 that a customer could receive when he/she changes his/her agreed carrier, discouraging customers from changing agreed carriers so as to receive more rebate.

Regulation 20 - When and how rebate is given

Regulation 20 requires an agreed carrier to pay rebate to a designated customer before, or as soon as practicable after, the end of the billing period. Rebate can be paid by making a payment to the customer, by credit to the customer's account, or by any combination of payment and credit.