Telstra fined $1.5 million for not relinquishing customer phone numbers

Telstra has been fined more than $1.5 million after restricting consumers from porting their local phone numbers when changing telcos.

In April last year, Telstra stopped porting landline numbers to and from other telcos and did not resume until July 2020, violating both the Telecommunications Act and the Industry Code. 

The backlog of number ports wasn’t completed until October 2020. As a result, over 42,000 home phone services could not be moved from Telstra to other services, or from other services to Telstra.

As part of keeping the telco landscape competitive, Australian consumers are are always able to keep their phone number when switching providers under law. This applies to mobile, landline, and freephone numbers. Telcos are legally obliged to let customers leave with a phone number, meaning that the provider must relinquish the phone number and give it to the new telco which is taking up the service.

An investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found that Telstra contravened the Telecommunications Act 895 times but the telco is only being penalised for 120 occasions. 

According to ACMA, Telstra had difficulties due to COVID-19 and took this into account when deciding the financial penalty. While the details of the fine have been redacted, ACMA also gave formal notice for the telco to comply with the Local Number Portability Code. Should Telstra fail to comply it may face court-mandated fines of up to $250,000 per contravention. For comparison, ACMA can only impose fines of up to $12,600 per breach.

Anula Wiwatowska

Offsite Editorial Lead | Instagram

Anula is the Off-Site Editorial Lead for WhistleOut Australia, and an award winning tech journalist. She has been writing about the Australian telco industry, and consumer technology for over five years, and has been known to tell her Uber driver which phone they should upgrade to next.

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