The companies – AAPT, Austar, iiNet, Internode, Macquarie Telecom, Powertel, Primus Telecom, Telarus, TransACT, WestNet and Unwired – have sent a letter of complaint to the consumer watchdog asking it to investigate whether the Telstra campaign represents misleading and deceptive conduct.
The complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission details a series of instances, including a media release, a teleconference and an email to customers where it says Telstra “has simply not told the whole truth.”
“Telstra is pushing the false impression that Australia’s regulatory regime somehow ignores its costs and legitimate business interests,” the group said in a statement.
“This is not the case, and if past performance is any indicator, Telstra is on a rampage to force both sides of politics to weaken the Trade Practices Act so it can increase prices.”
Calling themselves T4, the group has launched an education campaign called Tell the Truth Telstra that targets MPs, regulators and the public with what it call “the facts behind the state of broadband and telecommunications regulation in Australia.”
The T4 group has launched a web site at tellthetruthtelstra.com.au to counter some of the claims coming out of Telstra’s own campaign web site, nowwearetalking.com.au.
“As the nation debates the future of broadband, it is time to set the record straight about communications services in this country and the central role of competition in satisfying consumer demand.
“With an election looming, Telstra has turned up the volume and strayed a long way from the facts,” said the T4 group.
The group says that since government introduced competition in Australia, competitors had pioneered innovations like internet access for home and business, capped plans for mobile, and fast broadband using ADSL2+ and 3G services.
It says that “time and again” Telstra has only introduced new services and lower prices when it was forced to match the competition.
“Now Telstra is acting as though it can hold the country to ransom – positioning itself as the only company that can deliver Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) and demanding to be allowed to increase prices before it will do so.
“The regulator has told a Senate hearing that Telstra had ‘walked away from upgrading its network to a FTTN because it could not get a green light to artificially inflate the price for existing broadband services in order to be able to justify charging higher prices for access to the new network’.
“Pretty much everyone but Telstra is united in the desire to create better broadband through effective competition rather than watered-down regulation,” the group spokesman said.
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