ANOTHER day, another NBN saga.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says Telstra is offering 42,000 customers refunds, free exit from contracts, or new plans after it admitted its promised maximum NBN speeds could not be delivered.
Telstra told the consumer watchdog 9000 of its customers on its 100/40 Mbps deal - or 100 Mbps download and 40 Mbps upload - and 50/20 plan could not receive those speeds.
The ACCC's investigation found many more customers were affected by limitations on fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) or fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) connections, meaning some weren't even getting the maximum speed offered on a lower-speed deal.
"We have had mis-selling of services where customers have been asked to pay extra," the consumer watchdog's chairman Rod Sims told Fairfax Media on Wednesday.
"Some customers have been approached and they've been asked to pay $20 or $30 extra per month and the service they were sold up to cannot be delivered.
"It's extremely serious."
The problem affected customers across a range of plans offered between September 2015 and November this year.
The consumer watchdog found 26,497 - more than half - of FTTN customers on the 100/40 Mbps deal could not get that speed, and 9606 of those consumers could not even receive the lower tier 50/20 Mbps speeds.
Telstra has promised to check newly connected customers' speeds, and offered compensation if they are below the advertised rates. The ACCC is asking other retailers for similar commitments.
The watchdog will continue to monitor cases where a speed can technically be delivered, but internet service providers have not bought enough capacity from NBN Co to provide advertised services.
Mr Sims said the results of the investigation clarify that speed problems are generally to do with retailers' capacity, and not the technology.
He said customers on FTTN, for example, are unlikely to receive the highest speeds, but could expect 25Mbps almost all the time.
"Going forward if you're a Telstra customer, and pretty soon with [other retailers>[/embedp>
