Australian incumbent operator Telstra has been fined A$510,000 ($459,000) for missing two performance benchmarks for provisioning of new landline connections.
Regulator ACMA has issued Telstra an infringement notice and formal warning for falling slightly short on two of the regulator's nine customer service guarantee (CSG) benchmarks for the 2012-13 financial year.
Australian regulations require operators to ensure that at least 90% of new urban and rural connections per year are installed within mandated time-frames. But Telstra achieved only an 88.6% and 89% performance for new urban and rural connections respectively.
The regulator also issued a formal warning to Telstra for eight instances of breaching several regulatory requirements relating to the need to hold a consultation process before removing payphones.
Announcing the fine and the warnings, ACMA said it had taken into account several mitigating factors.
These include the extreme weather events that took place in 2012-13, Telstra's open engagement with the regulator during the investigation, the effort the operator had taken to meet the new requirements for payphone consultations and the fact that consultations had occurred in each case.