In a year of significant change and continuing convergence of carriage and content, it is appropriate to reflect upon the role of the TIO.

With the office handling a weekly average of 3000 calls, compared with about 2500 six months ago, there is no doubt that telecommunications consumers have a need for an alternative dispute resolution scheme such as the TIO.

But can the TIO in its present form keep pace with the dynamism of the telecommunications industry? The Explanatory Memorandum to the Telecommunications Bill (1997) posed the TIO as a key element in the telecommunications industry self-regulatory regime.

For the TIO to serve consumers effectively, three important principles must apply:

1. the Scheme should develop in step with changes in the telecommunications industry as opposed to evolving into something that it was never intended to be.
2. the TIO should provide an adequate measure of protection irrespective of the telecommunications services consumers use and irrespective of the technology that is used to deliver them.
3. consumers should be able to bring a variety of complaints to the TIO in a way that increases the efficiency of complaints-handling in the industry, reduces any overlap in jurisdiction and discourages consumers from forum shopping.

One of the Scheme’s key limitations is that it is prohibited from investigating complaints about the content of a content service. This is at a time when the distinction between carriage and content is becoming increasingly blurred.

Allow me to use an example. The Australian Communications Authority - whose very merger with the ABA is recognition of the coming together of carriage and content - is grappling with how to regulate the provision of adult content via mobile phones.

Complaints about this type of service will not necessarily be framed according to the consumer’s dissatisfaction with the content they receive. They will be made in the context of a consumer being unwilling to pay a bill as they will claim not to have received what they ordered.

Experience shows that these complaints will land in the lap of the TIO, even if a separate body is established to handle content complaints. This will reduce the efficiency of complaints handling. I have previously argued for the TIO to be a one-stop shop, or an overarching Communications Industry Ombudsman – a good initial example being the pay-TV industry. We are still faced with the absurd position where a consumer who receives a bundled service including pay-TV is able to bring a billing dispute concerning any of the other services in the bundle to the TIO, but not a dispute about the billing of the pay-TV service.

With the debate over how to regulate a privatised Telstra, it will be important for legislators, regulators, and telecommunications and internet service providers not to lose sight of the important role that the TIO plays in the communications industry.

The convergence of communications represents not just a challenge to the industry but an opportunity. Failure by the industry to seize this opportunity, and to consider the role that the TIO might play in five or ten years time, will significantly weaken the protections that consumers now enjoy.

John Pinnock
Ombudsman