The number of Australian NBN subscribers due to receive compensation from leading telcos over misleading speed claims has risen to almost 60,000.
Telstra, Optus and TPG have all agreed to offer refunds to customers who may have received slower NBN speeds than what was offered in the products they bought.
Their decisions follow action late last year by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which had threatened to take legal action against telcos found to have been misleading some customers over the speeds they could receive.
The ACCC had discovered that the promised speeds could never be achieved, due to limitations on certain fibre-to-the-node (FttN) and fibre-to-the-building (FttB) connections.
Initially Telstra had told the ACCC that 9000 of its customers on 100/40 Mbps and 50/20 Mbps plans could not receive speeds above the next lower speed plan.
However a deeper look by the ACCC found a much greater number were affected – and Telstra raised the figure to a staggering 42,000.
In early December, Optus agreed to a similar deal to offer “remedies” to more than 8700 of its customers, and on December 20 TPG Internet joined in, agreeing to compensate up to 8000 affected customers.
