explanatory statement
Issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
Telecommunications Act 1997
Telecommunications Labelling (Customer Equipment and Customer Cabling) Amendment Notice 2009 (No. 1)
Purpose
The purpose of the Telecommunications Labelling (Customer Equipment and Customer Cabling) Amendment Notice 2009 (No. 1) (the Amendment Notice) is to amend the Telecommunications Labelling (Customer Equipment and Customer Cabling) Notice 2001 (the Labelling Notice) to give regulatory effect to three technical standards made by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) under section 376 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (the Act), insert an expiry date for an existing standard and make minor editorial changes.
Legislative Provisions
Section 407 of the Act provides that the ACMA may make a written instrument requiring any person who is a manufacturer or an importer or authorised agent (collectively referred to as “suppliers”) of customer equipment (CE) or customer cabling (CC) to apply a label to specified items of CE and/or CC. The Labelling Notice has been made using this power.
The application of a label indicates that the item meets the requirements of the technical standards made by the ACMA under section 376 of the Act, as specified in the Labelling Notice.
A predecessor to the ACMA, the Australian Communications Authority (the ACA), made the Labelling Notice in 2001. In accordance with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2005, the ACMA is taken to have made the Labelling Notice under the Act as previously made by the ACA.
Subsection 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 provides that where an Act confers a power to make an instrument, that power shall, unless the contrary intention appears, be construed as including a power exercisable in a like manner and subject to like conditions, to amend that instrument.
Background
The telecommunications regulatory arrangements for CE and CC require that each supplier apply a compliance label to specified customer equipment and cabling prior to supply to the market. The label indicates whether the CE or CC complies with the relevant technical standards made under section 376 of the Act and as specified in the Labelling Notice.
Subsection 376(2) of the Act provides that mandatory requirements in technical standards made under section 376 of the Act are to consist only of such requirements as are necessary or convenient for:
- protecting the integrity of a telecommunications network or facility;
- protecting the health and safety of persons who are likely to be affected by the operation of the network or facility to which the equipment or cabling is connected;
- ensuring equipment can be used to give access to an emergency call service;
- ensuring interoperability of equipment with a network facility used to provide the standard telephone service; or
- achieving an objective specified in the regulations (no regulations have been made to date).
The Labelling Notice also specifies the applicable technical standard made under section 376 of the Act for each item of CE or CC, the level of testing required for each standard in order to demonstrate compliance (the compliance level) and, amongst other things, the labelling requirements including placement, type and form of the label.
The Labelling Notice at section 1.8 also allows for the parallel operation of ‘old’ and ‘replacement’ standards, in the event that an existing (old) standard is replaced by an amended or, newly created standard. This parallel operation, known to industry participants as the overlap period, allows suppliers of CE and CC to continue to use the ‘old’ standards for the duration of the overlap period and assists industry in the transition from one standard to the next.
A 24 month overlap period is generally considered to be an appropriate period of time to allow suppliers to transition from an existing to a new standard. This overlap period is only implemented by the ACMA where it considers that the changes do not substantively affect integrity of the network, safety of users or access to emergency services.
The Labelling Notice and the specified technical standards made under section 376 of the Act are important components of the telecommunications regulatory requirements that aim to ensure the integrity, safety and continued availability of telecommunications networks within Australia.
Operation
The Amendment Notice will amend the Labelling Notice to give regulatory effect to three new technical standards made by the ACMA under section 376 of the Act. These technical standards are:
- Telecommunications Technical Standard (Requirements for DSL Customer Equipment for connection to the Public Switched Telephone Network – Part 1: General – AS/ACIF S041.1:2009) 2009;
- Telecommunications Technical Standard (Requirements for DSL Customer Equipment for connection to the Public Switched Telephone Network – Part 2: Modems for use in connection with all DSL services – AS/ACIF S041.2:2009) 2009; and
- Telecommunications Technical Standard (Requirements for DSL Customer Equipment for connection to the Public Switched Telephone Network – Part 3: Filters for use in connection with all ADSL services – AS/ACIF S041.3:2009) 2009.
In addition, to assist suppliers in adapting to the revised standards, the Amendment Notice applies an overlap period of 24 months. During this period suppliers have the option of declaring compliance with either the new or former standard.
Communications Alliance Ltd[1] has advised the ACMA of its intention to withdraw the industry standard AS/ACIF S042.2:1999 Requirements for connection to an air interface of a telecommunications network – Part 2: CDMA (IS 95) (AS/ACIF S042.2:1999) as a result of the closure of all CDMA[2] digital cellular mobile telecommunications networks. This standard applies to all CDMA CE and is a mandatory standard referenced in the Labelling Notice.
After reviewing AS/ACIF S042.2:1999 the ACMA considers there is no longer a need to continue to maintain this standard as a regulatory standard. All CDMA digital cellular mobile telecommunications networks previously operating in Australia have now ceased to operate and carriers have migrated to newer technologies such as 3G[3] for their cellular mobile services.
As a result, the Amendment Notice assigns an expiry date, being 31 December 2009, against the current CDMA standard listed in the Labelling Notice to reflect that the standard has expired and is no longer an applicable mandatory standard.
The Amendment Notice also incorporates some machinery changes to the Labelling Notice that include:
- changes to notes to clarify compliance levels for particular standards;
- clarifying the application of existing standards to particular equipment categories;
- correcting the definition of “authorised officer” to align that definition to that used in other labelling notices; and
- updating the ACMA’s contact details.
Consultation
The Communications Alliance draft industry standard that has now been adopted by the ACMA in three parts under section 376 was made available for public comment for a period of 80 days from 2 December 2008 to 20 February 2009.
During that public consultation, attention was drawn to the fact that the draft industry standard would be incorporated into three technical standards made by the ACMA under section 376 of the Act and referenced in the compliance and labelling regulatory arrangements of the Labelling Notice.
The Communications Alliance public consultation process involved copies of the draft industry standard being made available free of charge for download from the Communications Alliance website. In addition, copies of the draft industry standard were sent to interested parties such as members of Communications Alliance including its Customer Equipment and Cable Reference Panel, the Network Reference Panel and various working committees.
Public comment on the draft industry standard was also sought through The Australian newspaper and Standards Australia publications and committees.
As appropriate consultation was conducted by Communications Alliance on the draft industry standard which was incorporated into the technical standards made by the ACMA under section 376 of the Act, the ACMA is satisfied, under paragraph 18(2)(e) of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 (LIA), that further consultation on the Amendment Notice as far as it relates to the technical standards made by the ACMA under section 376 of the Act is unnecessary.
As the insertion of an expiry date for AS/ACIF S042.2:1999 into the Labelling Notice does not introduce new requirements, and is a machinery amendment to provide clarity to the status of the standard due to the closure of the CDMA networks, the ACMA is satisfied under paragraph 18(2)(a) of the LIA that consultation was not necessary. Furthermore, the ACMA considers that Communications Alliance sufficiently represents its industry members in recommending the expiry of AS/ACIF S042.2:1999, and is satisfied that affected persons have had an opportunity to comment on this legislative change.
The ACMA is satisfied, pursuant to paragraph 18(2)(a) of the LIA that consultation of the other amendments to the Labelling Notice contained in the Amendment Notice is unnecessary as these amendments are minor and machinery in nature and do not substantially alter existing arrangements.
Regulation Impact
The ACMA obtained advice from its Best Practice Regulation Coordinator that the inclusion of the technical standards in, and making the minor and machinery changes to, the Amendment Notice do not impose any substantial additional regulatory burden on manufacturers and importers of CE. For these reasons, under the self-assessment regime administered by the Office of Best Practice Regulation, the ACMA has determined that there is no need to produce a Business Cost Calculator report or to prepare a Regulation Impact Statement (RIS). The ACMA exemption identifier is ACMA 118.
Documents Incorporated in this Instrument by Reference
The Amendment Notice incorporates into the Labelling Notice the section 376 technical standards referred to above. These standards are available from the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments (www.frli.gov.au).
Description of the provisions of the Amendment Notice
Details of the Amendment Notice are in the Attachment.
ATTACHMENT
NOTES ON SECTIONS
Section 1 – Name of the Notice
This section provides that the name of the Notice is the Telecommunications Labelling (Customer Equipment and Customer Cabling) Amendment Notice 2009 (No. 1).
Section 2 – Commencement
This section provides that the Notice commences on the day after it is registered.
Section 3 – Amendment of Telecommunications Labelling (Customer Equipment and Customer Cabling) Notice 2001
This section provides that Schedule 1 amends the Telecommunications Labelling (Customer Equipment and Customer Cabling) Notice 2001.
Schedule 1 – Amendments
Item [1] – Subsection 1.4 (1), definition of authorised officer, paragraph (b)
This item amends the definition of an authorised officer to ensure consistency in the terminology relating to appointment of those officers used across all labelling notices administered by the ACMA.
Item [2] – Schedule 1, Part 1, Table 1.1, item beginning with AS/ACIF S041
This item inserts a new table reference at AS/ACIF S041-2005 column 3, which introduces an expiry date for that technical standard. It also inserts three rows into Table 1.1 referencing the three new AS/ACIF S041 technical standards made by the ACMA under section 376 of the Act in 2009.
Item [3] – Schedule 1, Part 1, Table 1.1, item beginning with AS/ACIF S042
This item amends column 3 of Table 1.1 to provide an expiry date of 31 December 2009 for the AS/ACIF S042.2-1999 technical standard.
Item [4] – Schedule 1, Part 2, Table 1.2, item beginning with A13
This item amends the table to remove redundant columns from this category by merging columns 3, 4 and 5. It also aligns the words “Category withdrawn” in the centre of the three columns.
Item [5] – Schedule 1, Part 2, Table 1.2, items beginning with A16 and A17
This item amends the table to remove redundant columns from this category by merging columns 3, 4 and 5. It also aligns the words “Category withdrawn” in the centre of the three columns.
Item [6] - Schedule 1, Part 2, Table 1.2, items beginning with A23, A24 and A25,
This item inserts note “23” in rows A23 and A24, column 5 for the ACA TS005 and AS/ACIF S042 technical standards. It also replaces “MobileSat terminal” with “MobileSat® terminal” at row A25, column 2 to identify this item as a registered trademark.
Item [7] Schedule 1, Part 2, Table 1.2, item beginning with A53, column 5
This item specifies notes “23, 24” as being relevant to the AS/ACIF S042 technical standard.
Item [8] Schedule 1, Note 8, paragraph (b)
This item replaces the words “this standard” with “AS/ACIF S042.3-2005” to refer to the specific version of the AS/ACIF S042 standard the note refers to.
Item [9] Schedule 1, Note 28
This item specifies that the 2008 version of the AS/ACIF S004 technical standard and its applicable clauses are relevant to certain disability customer equipment. This equipment is referenced at item A51 of Table 1.2, Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the Labelling Notice.
Item [10] Schedules 4 to 5A
This item replaces the forms that suppliers are required to provide under sections 4.2, 2A.3 and 1.4 of the Labelling Notice with updated versions. These forms are:
Schedule 4 – Application for permission to use regulatory marks and for issue of supplier code number;
Schedule 4A – Notice of intention not to apply a compliance label to exempt items;
Schedule 5 – Supplier’s declaration of conformity; and
Schedule 5A – Declaration of conformity – disability customer equipment.
[1] Communications Alliance Ltd is the peak body for the Australian communications industry and a Standards Development Organisation accredited by Standards Australia to develop Australian Standards for the telecommunications industry.
[2] Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a communications scheme used by various radiocommunications technologies for data communications. It employs spread spectrum technology with a special coding scheme to allow multiple users to simultaneously communicate over the same wireless channel. This scheme formed the basis for what was commonly known as the CDMA digital cellular mobile network.
[3] 3G refers to the third generation of digital cellular mobile telecommunications technology. GSM and CDMA technologies are considered 2G or second generation technology. 3G offers greatly increased data rates compared to 2G, allowing operators to offer more advanced services.