Dodo, iPrimus and M2 Commander told NBN porkies too

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Dodo, iPrimus and M2 Commander (all owned by Vocus Group) told NBN porkies about speeds their customers had paid for. A.k.a. Misleading or deceptive conduct says the ACCC.

By the way, A porky is British slang for a very big lie. Not a little harmless white lie, but the telling of a ‘Big fat lie – pork pie – porky’. “I think Edward was telling me porkies… I shall kill him forthwith. If you ever give me a porky again, I’ll slit you open, and bog in your ear”, says Urban Dictionary.

GadgetGuy prophetically said this week when iiNet, TPG and Internode also got caught telling NBN porkies  “Now they have been named and shamed (and interestingly it is the big guys that have been under ACCC scrutiny first) wait for many of the other 150 CSPs to be investigated. Rumour has it that most are not delivering speeds as promised. We may see a lot more voluntary reparation.”

Perhaps a recap is in order. Regarding the inability to deliver promised NBN speeds:

  • Telstra had 42,000 affected customers
  • Optus had 8,700
  • TPG had 8,000
  • iiNet had 8,000
  • Internode had 3,000
  • Dodo had 3,384
  • iPrimus had 1,912
  • Commander 565

Dodo’s customers (2,436) were attracted to its super cheap 100/40Mbps tier. 1037 of these could not even reach the 50/20 tier.

iPrimus customers (904) were unable to access 100/40 Mbps speeds. 396 of these could not even reach the 50/20 tier.

M2 Commander customers (283) unable to access 100/40Mbps. 104 of these could not even reach the 50/20 tier.

You can read the ACCC release here.

The ACCC has already accepted undertakings from Telstra, Optus, TPG, iiNet and Internode for promoting broadband speeds they could not deliver to their customers.

Telstra and TPG have already contacted affected customers and offered compensation options. Other affected customers should expect to receive a letter or email from their CSP by:

  • Optus: 6 April 2018
  • iiNet: 27 April 2018
  • Internode: 27 April 2018

GadgetGuy’s take – more NBN porkies

The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission has done a great job in outing deliberately deceptive conduct by CSPs.

FACT: CSPs know what speeds and reliability every customer gets after connection. Instead of being proactive and contacting affected customers many chose to ignore it and hope it goes away.

FACT: NBN itself has been blamed by media and others with a vested interest (Labor) to scuttle the more affordable and achievable Multi-Technology Mix (MTM) because the  Liberal Government dared depart from Rudd and Conroy’s sacred, $37.8 billion, spur of the moment, ‘paper napkin FTTP approach’.

FACT: NBN can measure end user’s speeds and provide this information to the ACCC if requested if CSPs don’t clean up their money grubbing act.

Of course, GadgetGuy says that FTTP (Fibre to the Premise) would have been preferable to MTM. Everyone wants the ideal but not at the expense of bankrupting the nation and taking far longer to roll out.

GadgetGuy is saying the hectares of bad publicity and witch hunts about NBN and poor Bill Morrow CEO are largely fake news.

Things can be fixed much sooner if consumers realise that the issue is with the CSP that provides the ‘last mile link and billing system.

Tell your NBN problems to someone who cares – it should be your CSP.