Telstra Pays Financial Penalty for Missing Regulatory Requirements:

Australia's Telstra paid the Australian Communications and Media Authority an administrative penalty of $510,000 for failing to provide timely new urban landline customer connections in the 2012-13 financial year.

The ACMA issued an infringement notice to Telstra following its annual assessment of Telstra's 2012-13 compliance with the Customer Service Guarantee (CSG) benchmarks. The CSG benchmarks provide important safeguards for fixed-line telephone service customers for connecting a service, repairing a fault or service difficulty and for attending appointments with customers.

There are nine such benchmarks, of which Telstra met seven.

In deciding to issue the infringement notice and the formal warnings, the ACMA took into account Telstra's positive and early responses and its open engagement with the ACMA. The ACMA also took into account that 2012-13 was marked by extreme weather events which affected Telstra's fixed line network, particularly in remote areas.

The ACMA also issued a formal warning to Telstra for breaches of several regulatory requirements related to the consultation process undertaken on eight payphone removals.

The ACMA considers the payphone removal breaches were generally of a technical nature and noted the significant effort applied by Telstra in meeting the new requirements introduced on 1 January 2012, and that consultations did take place in each instance.