Australian telecom companies fined $22.1 mln for false web velocity claims

Nov 11 (Reuters) – Three Australian telecom corporations have been ordered by a courtroom to pay a collective A$33.5 million ($22.08 million) in penalties for making deceptive claims about velocity of some NBN web plans, the nation’s competitors regulator stated on Friday.

The Australian Federal Courtroom has ordered Telstra (TLS.AX) to pay A$15 million, a unit of TPG Telecom (TPG.AX) to cough up A$5 million, and imposed a nice of A$13.5 million on Optus, a unit of Singapore Telecommunications (STEL.SI), the Australian Competitors & Client Fee (ACCC) stated.

In keeping with the ACCC, the false or deceptive statements had been made for not less than 12 months in 2019 and probably prolonged till 2020, associated to their 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) or 100Mbps fibre to the node plans.

All three telcos have admitted in courtroom of creating false or deceptive statements, the regulator stated, claiming practically 120,000 prospects had been affected.

Telstra stated in an announcement that between April 2019 and April 2020 it did not confirm the utmost attainable velocity of the NBN providers ordered by round 48,000 prospects both fully or inside an affordable interval after connection.

NBN, or Nationwide Broadband Community, is a government-run broadband community.

“We have gone by an in depth remediation and refund course of. We have additionally taken quite a lot of steps to make sure we higher meet our regulatory obligations,” Telstra added.

Optus and TPG Telecom spokespersons, in separate emailed responses to Reuters, stated the businesses have made adjustments to their techniques and processes to handle the issues raised by the proceedings.

“Throughout 2021, TPG Web undertook a remediation program the place it contacted all affected prospects and provided refunds to these NBN FTTN prospects who had been eligible,” a TPG spokesperson stated.

Optus stated it’ll additionally re-contact the shoppers who’re eligible for remediation. 

($1 = 1.5175 Australian {dollars})

Reporting by Harshita Swaminathan and Himanshi Akhand in Bengaluru; Enhancing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Rashmi Aich

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