The Mobile Carriers Forum has welcomed the continuing low level of complaints to the ACMA regarding the Industry’s consultation practices when establishing telecommunications facilities.
The 2008/2009 ACMA Annual Report reveals that the ACMA received only 8 complaints relating to the compliance of the 3 mobile network carriers with mandatory obligations under the consultation code “Deployment of Mobile Phone Network Infrastructure”. By comparison, in 2002/2003 the ACMA received 137 complaints.
Carriers conducted an estimated 1,159 consultations under the code during 2008/09. “What the latest statistics from ACMA demonstrate the ACIF Code C564:2004 continues to have a positive effect with significant amounts of material being distributed to the community regarding the benefits of mobile telecommunications networks during consultation processes. The level of complaint has been maintained at less than 1% of the total number of sites deployed (consultations conducted).”said MCF Program Manager Matt Evans.
Complaints Against Carriers Consultation Practices Summary 02/03 – 08/09
| Year |
No of Complaints |
Relating to No of Sites |
No of sites deployed / Consultations conducted (low impact base station sites) |
| 2002 / 03 |
137 |
31 |
Data not captured by ACMA |
| 2003 / 04 |
48 |
28 |
> 1,300 |
| 2004 / 05 |
42 |
25 |
> 1,100 |
| 2005 / 06 |
27 |
20 |
3,639 consultations conducted |
| 2006 / 07 |
31 |
21 |
1,292 consultations conducted |
| 2007 / 08 |
6 |
5 |
2,587 consultations conducted |
| 2008 / 09 |
8 |
6 |
1,159 consultations conducted |
|
