November update from the Commissioner

The Optus outage has had a profound impact on many small businesses and their customers. With businesses increasingly dependent on technology, when it fails it results in lost sales and damage to customer relationships. Many businesses operators experienced major disruption and were justifiably frustrated with a lack of information on the nature of the outage and when they could expect Optus telecommunication services to be restored.  

The Commission has written to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, asking her to investigate ways that businesses can seek redress. The Commission will continue to pursue this issue and advocate for better protections for small business telecommunications customers so that they are less impacted in the event of future outages and service failures. 

The Commission’s mediation service continues to see steady demand from businesses looking for an inexpensive and efficient way of resolving arguments over retail leases and other matters. The Commission is currently conducting an Expression of Interest process to refresh our panel of accredited and professional expert mediators, to ensure the mediation service continues to fulfil its purpose.  If you are a NMAS registered mediator, please see here for more information. 

Finally, as you will have noticed, the Commission has launched its new website. We have sought to make improvements to the way you navigate the website, rather than make radical change, so in terms of content and key sections. Importantly our new website has an improved search function. Please take the time to review our website and let us know what you think by using the feedback tool on the website. 

Chris Lamont