Phones and Internet: Your Rights in Australia is a project by the Footscray Community Legal Centre (FCLC) that provides education materials designed for refugees and new migrants to help understand the telecommunications market in their first six months of residing in Australia. The project was funded under the 2011 round of the ACCAN Grants Scheme. 

One in four telecommunications consumers in Australia is from a Non English Speaking Background (NESB). While this group of consumers is large, there is very little policy development and research on what barriers are faced by these consumers and what mix of services might best meet their needs. As the telecommunications landscape rapidly changes in Australia, there is a strong need for improved understanding of the needs of Australia’s diverse communications consumers.

Customer service charters are a dead-end and not the way to go to get a better deal for communications consumers, according to research published today by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), Australia’s new watchdog for communications consumers.