The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network has welcomed the ACCC’s guidance to retail service providers (RSPs) and says it “should help clear up the consumer confusion around broadband speeds.”
The ACCC’s advertising overhaul on broadband speed claims, was reported on by iTWire in an article entitled “ACCC toughens up on retailer advertised NBN speed claims.”
ACCAN says that “the informative labels that the ACCC has suggested (basic evening speed, standard evening speed, standard plus evening speed and premium evening speed) will help consumers better understand the speeds they can expect from their services, and provide a useful guide on what level of service performance they are buying".
Teresa Corbin, ACCAN chief executive, said: “At the moment consumers are unable to tell what speed they can expect from a service during busy periods.
{loadposition alex08}“The ACCC’s advice to RSPs to focus their marketing on speed performance during busy periods will help consumers to know what speeds their services will actually deliver during peak times.
“The ACCC has recognised the frustrations consumers experience when services don’t work as advertised and expected, and is suggesting that retail providers can do better in these areas. We fully support this initiative and hope retail providers will get behind it.”
ACCAN states it also “welcomes the ACCC’s assertion that RSPs should quickly fix problems with network connections and other faults and offer consumers a refund or cancellation of their contract where they are unable to provide a timely resolution of a speed issue".
Corbin added: “If a consumer does experience an ongoing issue, they can also take their complaint to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.
ACCAN states it is also “very supportive of the ACCC’s broadband monitoring program that will begin running later this year. This program will give consumers information on speeds and performance delivered by RSPs".
Additional background information provided by ACCAN starts off by noting that, last year, “ACCAN strongly supported (PDF link) the ACCC’s investigation into broadband speed claims".
ACCAN says it knows “that there is a lot of confusion around what real-world speeds consumers should expect from Internet services”, and that “information provided to consumers about broadband speeds is often confusing and can also be misleading as claimed speeds frequently don’t match reality".
Unsurprisingly, at least from my perspective, ACCAN says this “confusion around what download speeds consumers should expect is supported by the statistics from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman 2015-16 Annual Report, which showed an increase of 48 per cent in complaints about slow data speeds".
Now, there are a range of factors that can affect broadband performance – with ACCAN acknowledging there is “little information available to consumers (ACCAN’s infographic on what can affect broadband performance is here).”
Additionally, we’re told this confusion is “supported by an ACCAN survey from early 2016 that found respondents were split in their opinion on whether providers differ in the level of quality they offer, with 58% of participants agreeing with the statement "you get the same speeds at home as advertised in your plan".
The final non surprise is that ACCAN notes it is “often contacted by consumers who are frustrated with the speeds they are receiving from their services".
Perhaps if NBN Co was willing to do more than simply what the government asked, and advocate for consumers in the way that ACCAN does, then things might be different.
Sadly, ACCAN is not the ACCANBN, but even so, NBN Co chief executive Bill Morrow should still hang his head in 12Mbps of shame.