News

2 December 2020

Be wary of energy plan comparison websites

The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) recently fined iSelect $8.5m for misleading their customers from Nov 2016 to Dec 2018. iSelect falsely claimed it recommended the most suitable plan, based on comparing all plans offered by its retail partners.

9 April 2020

Energy providers – Covid 19 response

The most important take-away message is this: make contact with your retailer. If you are struggling, make contact, explain your circumstances and make a request, whether it’s a debt waiver, payment extension or change to your payment plan.

31 March 2020

Minister calls for hardship measures from retailers

The Federal Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, has asked energy companies to apply their hardship provisions to people affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

31 March 2020

Telco initiatives – response to Covid 19

Big 3 telecommunications providers have announced responses to the COVID-19 situation. Telstra is providing home broadband customers with unlimited data until 30 April. Post-paid customers can apply for an extra 25GB of data, and some pre-paid customers can apply for an extra 10GB.

16 December 2019

South Australia’s Virtual Power Plant Schemes

A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) consists of a network of solar+battery systems installed across the electricity system (in homes, for instance), which can be remotely controlled by the VPP operator to provide power from those systems to the grid, either when wholesale prices are high or when the grid frequency needs to be stabilised.

13 December 2019

Competition in the mobile phone sector

In Australia, there are only three physical mobile phone networks (signalling towers, repeaters etc), owned by Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone. However, since the launch of Virgin Mobile in 2000, a growing list of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) has created a much more competitive market, by purchasing access to those networks and passing that on to customers at competitive prices.