Industry codes

What is a code?

A code is a statement of rules, procedures and principles developed by the telecommunications industry’s peak representative body, Communications Alliance, as the benchmarks of industry best practice.
Some industry codes give guidance as to how the various carriage service providers should work together to provide telecommunications services to consumers. Other codes focus on the relationship between customers and their service providers. These code types are respectively referred to as ‘Operational Codes’ and ‘Consumer Codes’.
For a code to be recognised by the TIO, the ACMA must have formally registered it. It is not necessary for a TIO member to have become an official signatory of a particular code for a code issue to be raised against them during a TIO investigation.

How do we use codes?

The TIO uses the rules, principles and guidelines contained within the industry codes to:

• evaluate consumer complaints
• critically assess the evidence supplied during an investigation
• measure the fairness and reasonableness of proposed outcomes
• explain the reasons behind our decisions
• educate members as to their obligations
• keep regulatory bodies and other concerned parties informed as to the performance of the industry against
  the standards which have been set in place.
  

What codes do we use?

We investigate and report against these industry codes:

How do we capture code data?

The TIO captures code data while it performs its primary function, that is, the investigation and resolution of individual consumer complaints. We capture code data in two ways:

1. When a TIO officer logs a complaint they do so using a set of pre-approved complaint descriptors, or keywords. The selection of specific combinations of these keywords will cause code-related questions to ‘pop-up’, and the TIO officer’s answers (based on the information provided by the complainant) to those questions will determine whether a ‘possible code issue’ will be automatically populated into our complaint handling database. This process of capturing possible code data is applied at levels 1 and 2.
   
   
2. When a complaint is escalated for formal investigation at level 3 or 4, a TIO officer will write to the member regarding the possible code issues that may be relevant to the complaint, and will invite that member to demonstrate with evidence whether they have complied with the particular code provisions. When the investigation is complete, the TIO officer will assess all available evidence to determine whether a breach of the code has occurred. If yes, a ‘confirmed code breach’ will be recorded. The TIO does not record any possible code issues at levels 3 and 4.

What do we do with code data?

At the end of each month, quarter and financial year, we send our code data to stakeholders including the ACMA, ACCC and Communications Alliance. We also provide company-specific code data to a number of our members, so that they may use this information to improve their internal complaint handling processes.

Possible code issues by category

Confirmed code breaches by category

During the 2008/09 year, we completed some investigations for which the relevant codes have now been de-registered by the ACMA. Accordingly, this annual report contains some information pertaining to the following codes:

• Commercial Churn Code
• ACIF Billing Code
• ACIF Credit Management Code
• ACIF Complaint Handling Code
• ACIF Consumer Contracts Code
• ACIF Customer Transfer Code
• ACIF Prices, Terms and Conditions Code.

Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code chapters and their deregistered ACIF Code equivalents have been combined in the above tables.

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