Australian internet providers have three months to add “typical busy period” upload speed information for fixed-line broadband services to their websites.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said yesterday [pdf] that upload claims would need to appear “prominently… at least on retail providers’ websites”, but not in “all forms of marketing material.”
This was a concession to the industry, which had nearly universally opposed publishing upload speed data, due to concerns mostly about cost, utility and need.
The ACCC said that “most retail providers moderated their initial concerns” about costs through additional consultation.
The commission, however, made some key concessions: limiting where upload speeds have to be mentioned in marketing, and also to allow speeds on fixed-line networks to be estimated, if measuring them more accurately would be too complex or expensive.
The standard estimate will appear as a speed claim “that is 15 percent below the maximum upload speed in the product description.”
“For example, for a retail product with maximum download/upload speeds of 50/20 Mbps, a 15 percent reduction on the 20Mbps upload speed would be 17Mbps,” the ACCC said.
“A 15 percent reduction is a conservative estimate based on the fixed-line technology with the lowest upload speeds (FTTN).”
Retail providers will also need to disclose “typical busy period” upload speeds for fixed wireless services, but will have longer to do so - six months.
Estimates for fixed wireless won’t be accepted as complying with the marketing guidelines, however.
It appears the three- and six-month periods are to be measured from yesterday, October 31, which would mean upload speeds published for fixed-line services by the end of January 2023, and for fixed wireless by the end of April.
Telstra had asked the ACCC to consider limiting where upload speed data needed to be published.
“Our biggest concern is that any new requirements for communicating information about upload speeds in marketing material must be relevant to customers, avoid adding clutter and complexity to our headline advertising, and minimise any expansion of the already onerous set of regulatory obligations that we face for broadband speed claims,” Telstra had said. [pdf]
“If this disclosure is required it should, at most, only have to be included in longer form marketing material (e.g. online, or in CIS [critical information summaries] or key facts sheets) as chosen by the retail service provider, but not in all marketing material.”
Other RSPs had argued against the proposal outright.
“Vocus does not support the ACCC’s proposal that retail service providers provide typical busy period upload speed information in marketing,” it said. [pdf]
“We do not see any compelling reason to be required to provide this information.
“Adding this representation to existing highly prescriptive marketing requirements may add to customer confusion.”
The ACCC first raised the prospect of adding upload speed claims to its marketing guidance at the start of 2022.
It cited Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) statistics on the proportion of complaints about slow speeds that were attributed to upload issues.
This was a direct response to industry, which had disputed whether there was any evidence that the level of upload-related complaints warranted action.
The ACCC argued that there was more interest among certain consumer groups generally now about what kind of upload speeds they should expect to see on purchased plans.
