. It seeks to influence the decision makers, such as required by the Telecommunications Act of 1989. It has a Standards government and PTT, on behalf of its members. To this aim it sets Advisory Committee (SAC), which administers its standards work, up task forces to deal with particular issues. and a series of Working Groups to whom standards are referred by the SAC. The AUSTEL is empowered by law to set mandatory Australian national standards relating to customer premises equip- 22.10 Bibliography ment and cabling. Barry, D. (1989) European standards gather pace, Telecommunica- 22.8.3 Standards Australia tions, January. Bennett, B. and Darling, P. (1990) The importance of telecommuni- Standards Australia was formed in 1922 as the Standards Associ- cation standards, Telecommunications Journal of Australia, 40, ation of Australia. It received the Royal Charter in 1950 and in 1988 it was nominated as the leading standards setting body in Australia, Bensen, S.M. and Farrell, J. (1991) The role of the ITU in stand- when it was renamed Standards Australia. ardisation, Telecommunications Policy, August. Standards Australia is a member of international standards bodies, Codding, G.A. and Gallegos, D. (1991a) The ITU's 'federal' struc- such as ISO and IEC, and has about 2000 Technical Committees ture, Telecommunications Policy, August. which cover a wide range of industrial and domestic standards. Codding, G.A. (1991b) Evolution of the ITU, Telecommunications Policy, August. 22.8.4 The ATUG Connor, S. (1990) The International Telecommunications Union - What it does and why we need it, Telecommunication Journal The Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG) is a of Australia, 40, (3). non-profit making user group. It aims to improve the services Corsi, N. (1991) Developing testing and certification standards in available to its members, including the range of services and its Europe, CSELT Technical Reports, XIX, (3), June. quality, and is involved in pricing issues. Fay, W.J. (1988) A European perspective on confo