More than 20,000 Canberra TransACT customers will have any early termination costs on their broadband and telephony services repaid in full after the National Broadband Network Company was found to have provided false and misleading information about disconnections.
The NBN Co has been fined $20,000 by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and ordered to reimburse disadvantaged customers after it was found to have advised TransACT customers that their existing phone and/or internet would be disconnected as part of the NBN rollout.
The affected customers are mostly those on the rival TransACT VDSL2 network.
The VDSL2 service is a unique fibre optic network installed in Canberra from 2001 and which was seen to be well ahead of any existing technology at the time. Some parts of this network are still faster than the NBN Co.
The incorrect advice was issued to Canberra customers between January and July last year.
News: NBN Co misled Canberra consumers about needing to move to the NBN: https://t.co/XIC7n6x4fl
— ACCC (@acccgovau) June 2, 2020
ACCC chairman Rod Sims described NBN's false advice as "unacceptable".
"Moving to the NBN is an important decision and it can be confusing. Consumers should be able to trust that NBN Co is providing them with accurate information," he said.
"The ACCC will not hesitate to seek high penalties in court against NBN, and other telcos if we see this type of conduct again."
As part of the undertaking, NBN Co must reimburse any early termination costs paid by consumers and businesses that moved to NBN Co before 10 July 2019, and then who chose to return to the TransACT network.
However, it stopped short of forcing NBN Co to reimburse the costs of reconnection for customers who wished to now switch back to the TransACT service.
NBN Co is also required to publish corrective notices, a paid Facebook advertisement and show its actions on its website, as well as to make a contribution towards the costs incurred by TransACT in seeking to correct the misleading communications.
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TransACT was originally a Canberra telecommunications company founded in 1996. It was acquired by iiNet in 2011, which then became a subsidiary of TPG in 2015.
NBN Co has also committed to safeguarding against repeating this conduct by "appropriately tailoring its disconnection communications" in the footprint of competing networks that supply more than 1000 services.
It must also keep a voluntary register on its website of competing networks that will continue to operate alongside it.
