The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission who last week managed to get Optus fined $5.2 Million for misleading consumers about broadband speeds, is now casting their eye over the operations of the NBN Co.
Executives at the NBN Co have been given a guide by the ACCC relating to network broadband ‘speed’ claims. The document claims that most users get a lot less than “touted” headline.
“There is a high risk of consumers being misled by ‘up to’, ‘peak’ or ‘maximum’ data rate claims where they do not reflect typical end-user experiences.” And it expects ISPs to “provide meaningful and accurate information to consumers regarding the quality of service likely to be attainable by end-users in practice, both in advertisements and at the point of sale.”
It says that, for the NBN, “the ‘split ratio’ will be determined by NBN Co. However, this will be known to retail and wholesale ISPs, and as such the ACCC would expect it to be taken into account when any claims as to likely data rates are being made.”
Part of the document says “On the NBN, ISPs will be responsible for purchasing connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) capacity from NBN Co. In doing so, they will need to determine the contention ratio for that capacity based on the number of customers they are intending to serve and the expected nature, volume and throughout of traffic.”
They go on to claim “While retail ISPs acquiring Layer 3 FTTP services are unlikely to have any influence on the contention ratio adopted by their wholesale ISP or the available backhaul capacity for their service, such retailers should obtain relevant information from their wholesale ISP to assist them in accurately marketing their service.”
They told the NBN that most ISP’s will want to market the maximum data transfer rates as opposed to the actual speeds that a consumer was getting.
They cited as examples ‘100/40Mbps’, ’50/20Mbps’ or ’25/5Mbps as terms that ISP’s might use.
