Sydney, 21 August 2017 - The Australian telecommunications industry fully supports the ACCC’s six best practice principles for advertising broadband speeds, and the objectives laid out in the ACCC’s release of detailed guidance today – to ensure that consumers are well informed about the performance of the broadband product they are considering buying, and are able to seek remedies if the service does not match the promised performance levels.

“However, internet service providers (ISPs) think it is reasonable for consumers to receive an understanding of how their service will perform at various times of the day – not just in the evening busy hours, which are the focus of the ACCC guidance,” said Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton.

The telecommunications industry is assessing the cost and complexity that will be added to the task of selling broadband services in Australia following today’s release.

“A number of ISPs have raised concerns that the ACCC guidance document released today adds layers of complexity to the task of marketing broadband services in Australia,

“The guidance appears self-contradictory in parts – calling on service providers to ‘discontinue’ any promotion of the speeds that consumers will experience outside the evening ‘busy hours’, but later appearing to permit this.

“Questions as to the practicality of the processes that the guidance calls for will become clearer as ISPs attempt to comply with it.”

Mr Stanton said industry would continue to work with the ACCC to assess the practicality of the guidance and looked forward to participating in the review of the regime 12 months from now.