The proposal is one of several made in a newly-released discussion paper issued after the Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Senator Richard Alston, directed the ACA to develop proposals to minimise user exposure to large bills for use of premium services. The ACA said under its proposal consumers could apply for a waiver from the proposed cap.
The ACA said under its proposal carriage service providers would be required to "bar future calls to numbers with a prefix of 190 for the remainder of a calendar month where charges incurred by a customer for those services exceed a specified cap".
Australian content service providers use premium numbers - which generally have a 190 prefix - to deliver a range of services via phone, fax, short-message service and the Internet.
Billing for premium services has been tied closely to the practice of Internet dumping, whereby Internet dialler software disconnects a customer's local-call connection to their ISP and reconnects the service via a new number, typically at international or premium rates, racking up a far higher bill for the consumer than would otherwise be the case.
The ACA said the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman - which investigated Internet dumping - had found that domestic 190 content service providers were "largely compliant in that they require their customers to indicate their willingness to accept responsibility for the charges associated with using these services.
"The real issue appears to lie in the fact that, in many of the complaints reported to the TIO, the customer has not read or understood this request and has unwittingly downloaded the software that connects the modem to a more expensive service".
The ACA said under its proposal, carriage service providers would be required "to provide information to customers about the potential for higher telephone bills when calling 190 and international numbers, and an explanation of the options available to lessen the risk of unexpected bills for these services".
ACA chairman, Tony Shaw, said: "The ACA will also be looking at whether there is a need for additional regulatory measures for these services, including for the supply of sexually explicit material over the Internet".
The closing date for submissions is 5 May 2003.
