Australian teenagers call on telcos to rejuvenate mobile phone industry

A youth advocacy group from Victoria is calling on the Australian telecommunications companies to be more teenager-friendly by introducing shorter contracts, reduced fees and greater transparency.

"We want you to understand what it's like for us to be young mobile consumers - we don't just use our mobiles for texting and mucking about, we need our phones to arrange work and education, contacting family and in emergencies, and they are expensive things for us to run," the advocacy group stated addressing the telcos.

The language used

They complained that the language used by the telcos was misleading and said more transparency was needed. "We want you to stop hiding all the important stuff in the fine print - be honest, tell us about all the charges up front," they stated and added the phone plans were as well too complicated to be understood.

Moreover, they asked for the suspension of fees for using their message bank or voicemail, and for a reform of mobile phones contracts. "We want shorter contracts - 18 / 24 month contracts are too long, the maximum length should be a year because phones don't mostly last that long," they said. "We want trial periods for plans so we can leave/change if they're not right for us".

ACCAN chief executive Teresa Corbin said the results provided an possibility for younger consumers to gain the attention of the industry. "This is a valuable possibility for the program's participants to engage directly with representatives of the telecommunications industry, government, community organisations and the media, and for them to respond," she said.