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Internet Service Provider Glossary with Interpretations and Definitions
Provider: Interconnect Networks Pty Ltd (ABN 35 659 014 767), trading as RBE.
Ever feel lost in internet jargon? You are not alone. With RBE Internet, you do not have to feel overwhelmed by any of it. As one of the most trusted internet providers in South Australia, we want to make your experience as smooth as possible, and that means making sure our clients fully understand the terms used in our service policies. We believe transparency builds trust, and that is what sets RBE apart.
This glossary explains the definitions and interpretations used across our policies. Whether you are reviewing our plans or understanding our services, it puts clarity at your fingertips. These definitions are consistent with the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code (C628:2025).
Action Plan
This means a plan submitted to Communications Compliance by a supplier.
Advertising
This means marketing and promotional material (including electronic and online) about a supplier’s telecommunications products.
Advocate
This means a person nominated by a consumer to deal with a supplier on the consumer’s behalf, who cannot make changes on a consumer’s behalf to a consumer’s account without the consumer being present and agreeing to such action.
Authorised Representative
This means the person who has authority from a consumer to deal with a supplier, including to discuss or make changes to a customer’s account without that customer being present, on behalf of that consumer.
Bill
This means an invoice from a supplier which includes debits and credits applied during that billing period and advises a customer of the total amount due, or in credit, and where an amount is expected, the payment method.
Billing
This means any one, or a combination of, the following activities:
- calculating and assembling charges incurred by a customer during a billing period;
- applying any debits or credits outstanding or discounts due against the charges, and calculating the net amount payable by the customer;
- issuing and delivering bills to the billing address;
- handling billing enquiries; and
- receiving and receipting payments made by the customer.
Billing Accuracy
This means the validity of charges and the correctness of the calculation of the charges.
Billing Address
This means the customer’s nominated online account, electronic, physical or postal address to which a bill is sent, or where notification is sent on how the bill can be accessed.
Billing Complaint
This means a complaint made to a supplier by a customer about any aspect of the customer’s bill or the supplier’s billing.
Billing Enquiry
This means a request to a supplier by a consumer for relevant information about a bill or billing.
Billing Name
This means the name of the customer to whom the bill is issued and delivered.
Billing Option
This means a billing-related option offered by the supplier that the consumer may choose or nominate.
Billing Period
This means a period to which billed charges relate.
Charge
This means the tariff or fee the supplier levies for providing a telecommunications product or a related transaction.
Communications Compliance
This means the independent body that monitors and reports on Code compliance.
Complaints Standard
This means the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints Handling) Industry Standard.
Consumer
This means:
- an individual who acquires or may acquire a telecommunications product for the primary purpose of personal or domestic use and not for resale; or
- a business or non-profit organisation that acquires or may acquire one or more telecommunications products that are not for resale and, at the time it enters into the customer contract, it:
- does not have a genuine and reasonable opportunity to negotiate the terms of the customer contract; and
- has or will have an annual spend with the supplier which is, or is estimated on reasonable grounds by the supplier to be, no greater than $40,000.
A reference to a consumer includes a reference to the consumer’s Authorised Representative.
Corporate Reorganisation
This means a reorganisation of the corporate group of which the supplier is a part, with the result that a customer will be provided with telecommunications services by another supplier after that reorganisation is complete.
Credit Assessment
This means the process by which a supplier determines the post-paid telecommunications products to be provided by it (if any) to a consumer.
Credit Management
This means the process by which a supplier:
- helps customers to manage their expenditure on telecommunications services;
- manages any credit risk to the supplier; and
- collects outstanding debts from customers and former customers.
Customer
This means a consumer who has entered into a customer contract with a supplier. A reference to a customer includes a reference to the customer’s Authorised Representative.
Customer Contract
This means an arrangement or agreement between a supplier and a consumer for supplying a telecommunications product to that consumer. For the avoidance of doubt, unless stated otherwise, the Standard Form Customer Contract is a customer contract.
Customer Service
This means services other than telecommunications services provided by a supplier to a customer in connection with the customer’s use of the supplier’s telecommunications products and the customer’s customer contract with the supplier.
Data
This means the component of a carriage service that provides access to online services such as email, web pages, media (for example audio and video), social networks, and app downloads and updates.
Direct Debit
This means a periodic payment automatically deducted by a supplier from a customer’s nominated financial institution account, implemented by the supplier at the customer’s request.
Disconnection
This means the termination by a supplier of a customer contract for a telecommunications service.
Discount
This means a reduction in the charge that a supplier usually levies.
Financial Hardship
This means a situation where:
- a customer is unable to discharge the financial obligations owed by the customer under their customer contract, or otherwise discharge the financial duties owed by the customer to a supplier, due to illness, unemployment, being the victim of domestic or family violence, or other reasonable temporary or ongoing cause; and
- the customer believes that they can discharge those obligations if the appropriate payment arrangements or other arrangements relating to the supply of telecommunications products by the supplier to the customer are changed.
Fraud
This means dishonestly accessing or using any telecommunications products of a supplier, or attempting to do so, with the intent of securing unlawful gain or advantage by:
- deceiving the supplier, any other supplier, or any other person; or
- not paying for the relevant telecommunications products.
Gaining Supplier
This means the supplier to whom a telecommunications service is to be transferred.
Guarantee
This means a guarantee of a customer’s obligations under a customer contract.
Guarantor
This means an individual or company who guarantees a customer’s obligations under a customer contract.
Hard Cap
This means a maximum amount applied to a customer’s use of telecommunications services that cannot be exceeded.
Itemised
This means details provided about a particular billed charge.
Itemised Billing
This means providing a bill that includes details for each billed charge.
Metrics
This means performance measures relating to certain obligations of suppliers under this Code, as required by Communications Compliance from time to time.
Offer
This means a current, standard, in-market plan containing pricing that a supplier makes for the provision of telecommunications products, which is available to any individual consumer or consumers as a class, and includes, without limitation, such offers made in advertising.
Post-Paid Service
This means a telecommunications product, including month-to-month plans, that can be used wholly or partly before being paid for by the consumer. It excludes pre-paid services.
Pre-Paid Service
This means a telecommunications product that the consumer must pay for before it is used.
Residential Customer
This means a customer that is an individual who acquires a telecommunications product for the primary purpose of personal or domestic use, and not for resale, under the standard terms and pricing for residential, non-business customers set out in the supplier’s Standard Form of Agreement.
Resolve
When used in connection with a complaint, this means bringing that complaint to a conclusion in accordance with the requirements of the Complaints Standard.
Restriction
This means that access to one or more of a supplier’s available telecommunications products, or an aspect of those telecommunications products, is limited.
Restriction Point
This means the point at which a restriction is to occur.
Sales Representative
This means a person employed or contracted, directly or indirectly, by a supplier (including staff employed by a third-party call centre to sell a supplier’s telecommunications products on behalf of that supplier) to sell, offer to sell, or otherwise promote telecommunications products to consumers as all or a substantial part of their role, other than a person who undertakes and completes a transaction for a pre-paid service for a consumer at a cash register in a retail outlet.
Shaping
This means a supplier deliberately controlling the maximum data transfer rate on a broadband service when the customer has exceeded the specified data allowance.
Special Promotion
This means an offer of limited duration, limited quantity, or offered to a limited subset of consumers (for example, a once-off promotion for members of a local gym, or a special discount for the staff of a business customer of a supplier), such as discounts off telecommunications goods or components of telecommunications services.
Spend Management Tools
This means a tool available to a customer, or applied by a supplier, to assist the customer in taking timely action to limit and manage their expenditure or usage allowance on a particular telecommunications product.
Standard Form Customer Contract
This means the supplier’s current Standard Form of Agreement for contracting with consumers.
Supplier
This means a carriage service provider.
Suspension
This means preventing access to a telecommunications service, except to emergency service numbers, by the supplier.
Telecommunications Goods
This means any goods supplied by a supplier for use in connection with the supply of a telecommunications service, whether the goods are provided in conjunction with, or separately from, a telecommunications service.
Telecommunications Product
This means telecommunications goods and a telecommunications service.
Telecommunications Service
This means:
- a listed carriage service, or any service supplied by a supplier in connection with that service; or
- a content service (other than a subscription broadcasting service or a television subscription narrowcasting service) provided by the supplier in connection with the supply of a listed carriage service.
Third-Party Charges
This means charges collected by a supplier on behalf of another commercial entity for any goods and services provided by that other commercial entity.
Timed Call
This means a call for which a charge is calculated according to the duration of the call.
TIO
This means the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, appointed under the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman scheme referred to in the Act. You can contact the TIO on 1800 062 058 or at tio.com.au.
Transfer
This means transferring all or part of a consumer’s telecommunications service from one supplier to the gaining supplier.
Unbilled Charges
This means charges relating to a telecommunications product incurred by a customer, and of which the supplier is aware, but which the supplier has not yet included in a bill.
Unfair
This has the meaning given to it in the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).
Untimed Call
This means a call where the applicable charge is not calculated according to the duration of the call.
Verification
This means the process performed by a proposed gaining supplier before effecting a transfer, under which the gaining supplier enlists a person or procedure (independent of the sales representative who procured the transfer) to confirm with the consumer the consumer’s request to transfer.
Working Day
This means a day that is not a Saturday, Sunday or gazetted public holiday in the location of the relevant supplier.
Need help understanding our internet service provider policy?
At RBE Internet, customer satisfaction is at the heart of everything we do, and part of that is providing our clients with clear definitions and interpretations. This glossary answers most questions, but if you need more help, our support team is always on standby. Contact us and we will make your experience stress-free.
This glossary is provided by Interconnect Networks Pty Ltd (ABN 35 659 014 767), trading as RBE, and is consistent with the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code (C628:2025). Information current as at July 2026.