Industry associations representing the telecommunications industry, Communications Alliance and the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), have proposed the creation of an industry guideline for making representations to consumers about the performance of broadband services, rather than being monitored by the ACCC.
The two groups have put forward their joint proposal in response to a discussion paper released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on broadband speed claims.
The Comms Alliance and AMTA argue in their submission that retail service providers (RSPs) are best placed to communicate information to consumers about the broadband performance they can expect to receive from a given service – including taking account of the wide range of different factors that can affect service performance.
The associations have offered to create the Communications Alliance Guideline in collaboration with Government, regulators and consumer representatives.
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Their submission also:
• Provides explanation around the existing impediments to RSPs being able to provide precise speed information to customers;
• Foreshadows a public education package about broadband performance that is being prepared by industry;
• Offers an evidence-based argument to show that upload and download speeds are typically not the highest priority for consumers when assessing which service to purchase;
• Provides some context to the complaints about Internet services being made to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO);
• Casts doubt on the ability of a broadband quality monitoring programme (proposed by the ACCC) to achieve its objective (and warns that the result of such a programme might, in fact, be anti-competitive); and
• Details the wide range of existing tools available to consumers to enable them to monitor the quality of their broadband service.
To access the Comms Alliance/AMTA submission, click here.