Three Australian telecom companies will have to shell out millions in fines as a court has held them liable for misleading claims about some NBN internet plans. The companies will have to pay a collective A$33.5 million ($22.08 million) in penalties.
The Australian Federal Court has ordered Telstra to pay A$15 million, a unit of TPG Telecom to cough up A$5 million, and imposed a fine of A$13.5 million on Optus, a unit of Singapore Telecommunications, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said.
ACCC said that the false or misleading statements were made for at least 12 months in 2019. The claims possibly continued until 2020. These claims were related to their 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) or 100 Mbps fibre to the node plans.
The regulator said that all three telcos have admitted in court to having made false or misleading statements. The ACCC said that nearly 120,000 customers were affected due to these claims.
Telstra said in a statement that between April 2019 and April 2020 it failed to verify the maximum attainable speed of the NBN services ordered by around 48,000 customers either completely or within a reasonable period after connection.
NBN, or National Broadband Network, is a government-run broadband network.
"We've gone through an extensive remediation and refund process. We've also taken a number of steps to ensure we better meet our regulatory obligations," Telstra added.
Optus and TPG Telecom spokespersons, in separate emailed responses...
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