Commonwealth Numbered Acts

TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT 1997 No. 47 of 1997 - SECT 17

(1) A reference in a particular provision of this Act to a standard telephone
service is a reference to a carriage service for each of the following
purposes:

   (a)  the purpose of voice telephony;

   (b)  if:

        (i)    voice telephony is not practical for a particular end-user with
               a disability (for example, because the user has a hearing
               impairment); and

        (ii)   another form of communication that is equivalent to voice
               telephony (for example, communication by means of a
               teletypewriter) would be required to be supplied to the
               end-user in order to comply with the
               Disability Discrimination Act 1992; the purpose of that form of
               communication;

   (c)  a purpose declared by the regulations to be a designated purpose for
        the purposes of that provision; where:

   (d)  the service passes the connectivity test set out in subsection (2);
        and

   (e)  to the extent that the service is for the purpose referred to in
        paragraph (a)-the service has the characteristics (if any) declared by
        the regulations to be the designated characteristics in relation to
        that service for the purposes of that provision; and

   (f)  to the extent that the service is for the purpose referred to in
        paragraph (b)-the service has the characteristics (if any) declared by
        the regulations to be the designated characteristics in relation to
        that service for the purposes of that provision; and

   (g)  to the extent that the service is for a particular purpose referred to
        in paragraph (c)-the service has the characteristics (if any) declared
        by the regulations to be the designated characteristics in relation to
        that service for the purposes of that provision.

(2) A service passes the connectivity test if an end-user supplied with the
service for a purpose mentioned in paragraph (1)(a), (b) or (c) is ordinarily
able to communicate, by means of the service, with each other end-user who is
supplied with the same service for the same purpose, whether or not the
end-users are connected to the same telecommunications network.

(3) The following are examples of purposes that could be declared by
regulations made for the purposes of paragraph (1)(c):

   (a)  the purpose of the carriage of data;

   (b)  the purpose of tone signalling.

(4) In making a recommendation to the Governor-General at a particular time
about the making of regulations for the purposes of paragraph (1)(c), the
Minister must have regard to the following matters:

   (a)  whether a carriage service for the purpose proposed to be declared by
        the regulations can be supplied using the same infrastructure as is,
        at that time, being used by universal service providers to supply a
        standard telephone service for the purpose referred to in paragraph
        (1)(a);

   (b)  such other matters (if any) as the Minister considers relevant.

(5) This section does not prevent a characteristic declared by regulations
made for the purposes of paragraph (1)(e), (f) or (g) from being a performance
characteristic.