ACCC boss slams ‘poor’ and ‘unacceptable’ NBN marketing
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has slammed internet providers’ NBN marketing efforts with commissioner Rod Sims describing current advertising as “poor” and “unacceptable”.
NBN plans have been plagued with consumer misunderstandings resulting in Telstra announcing last May dissatisfied users would receive refunds and Optus following suit over the weekend.
It is a sad day for marketing when the ACCC has to issue such “guidance”. We should not create communications that make promises so incompatible with reality. I think the “up to” wording is particularly egregious. Surely we would not advertise a carton of eggs by noting, “up to 12 eggs contained in this package. Actual quantities may vary due to various factors”. Yet this has become the standard type of promise made when it comes to Internet speeds.
We must be better than this.
G’day Joe.
I’d like to throw another variable into the mix.
All the plans I have seen are in Megabits and not Megabytes. But they use the abbreviations Mb and MB respectively.
I simply don’t know of anyone who talks in Megabits (Mb) any more. Yes, I know modems and comms work based on bits rather than bytes, but when people purchase a device they look at the storage in Gigabytes (GB) or Terabytes (TB), and the memory in Gigabytes (GB). No-one would ever think what was that in Gigabits.
Further people who, say, are downloading or streaming a file will say “how many gig is it” – meaning Gigabytes. Mentally they will do some sort of conversion and say … that’ll take a quarter of an hour.
But if the plans are sold in Megabits and not Megabytes that gives the false impression that they are eight times faster than what the lay person understands the way things are. Of course they are technically correct, but the majority of customers are not tech-heads.
I’ve spoken to various politicians and ministers about this and suggested a “typical time it takes to download/upload a 1 GB file” would be a very helpful and more meaningful adjust to the tech-speak. After all, how many times have you heard a politician say “that money could build five hospitals instead”, or “that’s the equivalent of 20 swimming pools of water saved”.
Let’s bring in some Plain English.
Cheers.
There needs to be some personal responsibility. People are signing onto the cheapest plans and then complaining… you wouldn’t buy a Suzuki Swift and expect the performance of a Porche…
Unless you are Malcolm Turnbull it seems
But they’re only complaining when their “cheapest plan” doesn’t deliver as promised.