Back to the future: Telstra to bill in 30 second increments

Telstra customers were recently notified of the switch by Australia's incumbent operator, from charging per second to charging in thirty-second blocks, reversing an almost universal trend to per-second billing that most service providers have followed since the introduction of sophisticated billing systems in the 1990s.

The new regime means that any answered call will deliver a minimum thirty-second charge. Critics point out that the proliferation ofvoicemail and answering machines means that many calls end in seconds. Now these calls will dramatically increase Telstra’s earnings in the future.

Under the existing system, a customer paying 20 cents a minute for an STD call would be charged 5 cents for a call lasting 15 seconds. Under the new system, the same 15-second call would cost twice as much because the minimum charge would be 10 cents for 30 seconds.