CANBERRA, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Australia's consumer watchdog has on Thursday leveled a warning to the nation's telecommunications providers, telling them to deliver on their promised internet speeds or face prosecution.
Rod Sims, Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) confirmed on local radio that he would be investigating the trend of telcos advertising internet speeds with terms such as "up to" and "typical," when they are actually delivering much lower average speeds.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Thursday, Sims said that some of the "big (providers)" were advertising their National Broadband Network (NBN) connection speeds at up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps) when they were consistently delivering speeds of around 7Mbps.
"The main focus will be on Telstra, Optus, Vocus and TPG. They have been put on notice and some of them know that they are subject to investigation by us," Sims said.
He said that the ACCC would also push to make it compulsory for telcos to publish data telling consumers of the typical internet speeds - something backed by the federal opposition.
"We've got a broadband monitoring regime in place so we can tell consumers what the speeds are and also check whether those providers are telling the truth," Sims said on Thursday.
The NBN Co - the government-owned entity in charge of the roll-out of Australia's next-general internet - has previously refused to allow the public to access data from the database, but speaking to News Corp on Thursday, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said the government was "happy to explore options" to keep customers happy.
