TPG to compensate almost 8000 customers for slow NBN internet

The highest-tier plan was advertised as: "Seriously Fast Internet".

TPG has become the third major telco to agree to compensate its customers over misleading NBN speed advertising, admitting to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission it would refund nearly 8000 of its NBN subscribers.

The compensation will cover TPG's fibre-to-the-node and fibre-to-the-building plans.

This follows Optus' announcement last week that it will compensate more than 8,700 NBN customers who received less than they bargained for.

Just over 2000 customers who purchased TPG's top NBN plan were only receiving download speeds of 50Mbps and upload speeds of 20Mbps - exactly 50 percent slower than what they paid for. Of those customers, 2,088 could not even receive 50/20 Mbps.

When the ACCC announced in November that Telstra would compensate some 42,000 FTTN and FTTB customers, TPG told Computerworld that it planned to have discussions with the consumer watchdog about the speed issue.

Customers will receive refunds on their chosen plans and be allowed to shift a lower tier, or exit their plans completely without cost.

TPG will contact affected consumers by March by email or letter.

"Some months back TPG companies wrote to FTTB/N customers and invited them to switch plans if they were dissatisfied with their connection speeds", a TPG spokesperson said at the time.

"TPG did, however, in direct mail and in the product section of its website where consumers could digest the additional information provided by TPG about speeds, differentiate between the products by reference to the speed tiers sold to TPG by the NBN", added Levy. "Some couldn't even get half those advertised speeds", said ACCC Chairman Rod Sims.

TPG has provided the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) a court-enforcable undertaking that it will compensate almost 8000 customers after it promised them download speeds of 100 megabits per second.

"The technical limitations of NBN's fibre-to-the-node technology meant many TPG customers could not reach the advertised 100/40 speeds they paid for".

This action serves as a reminder to broadband and IT service providers generally to ensure that when marketing their internet services to consumers, the attributes advertising must in fact be capable of being achieved in real world conditions, lest they risk exposure to significant penalties or court-enforceable undertakings to the ACCC.