ACCC executes perfect hit on Telstra, Optus and Vodafone
After months of secret negotiations, Telstra, Optus & Voda have rolled over and ‘offered’ ACCC a court enforceable undertaking … equivalent to court injunctions … to stamp out false advertising in the broadband and telephony industry.
When legal advisers warn second and third tier telcos and ISPs about advertising content, the single most common retort is ‘Telstra gets away with it’ and ‘We saw an Optus ad like that’ and ‘But Voda says the same thing’.
It’s a pretty good argument. If the giants can do it, why can’t we ?
No mistake, this is the biggest telco-truth-in-advertising hit ever landed by the national regulator. Like all good commando raids, it seemed to come from nowhere. Only yesterday morning did rumours start to circulate that ‘something big’ was coming out of Canberra in the next 24 hours.
If Tiers 2, 3 & 4 don’t get their act together now, they can’t complain they’re being picked on. And ACCC has made sure that Telstra, Optus & Voda are motivated to keep their networks honest.
Optus toughens up mobile contract
Last December Optus incurred customer wrath, effectively torpedoing mobile access to cheap international VoIP services by charging them at international rates.
At the time, Optus insisted that:
International calls within the meaning of your Optus Mobile Standard Form of Agreement for all Timeless and Cap plans includes calls that re-route or divert to international numbers.
CSP Central asked Optus to tell us where the SFoA said that. We couldn’t be sure – because the document is a confused mish-mash – but as far as we could tell it said no such thing.
Apparently Optus didn’t feel too sure of its grounds, either. So it has bolted on a powerful, unbalanced new contract term that is sure to attract the interest of consumer regulators who have unfair contract terms legislation in their armory. Today, that’s only Victoria. On 1 January 2010, it will be every Australian State and Territory, and the ACCC.
ACCC hauls Optus into Federal Court
In the latest action in its war on trade practices non-compliance in the telco sector, ACCC has taken Federal Court action against a wholly owned subsidiary of Optus Mobile Pty Ltd.
Prepaid Services Pty Ltd supplies phone cards that are resold by an independent company Boost Tel Pty Ltd.
ACCC alleges that Prepaid and Boost were involved in false advertising.
Optus fined $110k for SMS spam
ACMA has issued $110,000 in infringement notices to Optus Networks Pty Ltd for allegedly sending SMS messages without accurate sender identification, breaching the Spam Act 2003.
It seems that Optus pumped out 20,000 messages promoting its OptusZoo entertainment service, but didn’t identify itself as the responsible sender. Instead, it just quoted sender identification ‘966’. Recipients were apparently expected to work out that this meant ‘Zoo’ in keypad speak. Of course, it could also mean ‘Yom’, ‘Zom’ or ‘Xon’.
According to ACMA, Optus has paid the penalty and advised that new compliance measures have been implemented that will ensure accurate sender identification is included in all future commercial electronic messages.
More comment soon.
Dear Optus, please show us where
To describe the Optus standard customer contract as a dog’s breakfast is unkind to dogs. We know many canines that can at least keep their food inside the bowl.
In this case, the clarity (or otherwise) of the contract documents matters more than most. Optus is basing a controversial decision to deny Timeless or Cap plan customers access to cheap VoIP calls on a claim that its standard contract is quite clear about it.
When is a cap not a cap ? When it’s really a floor.
I’ve been around the industry a long time now, and seen plenty of times its regulation is unreasonable and illogical. But I side with the consumer on the use of the word ‘cap’ to mean ‘minimum charge’.
Here’s an article I wrote about it recently in my weekly Hands On column in the Australian Financial Review.
“We seldom use this column to advertise legal services, but duty demands that we don’t hide this offer under a bushel. We’ll service any telco’s legal needs for an amazing $100 a month on our amazing Hands On $100 Legal Fees Cap Plan. We’ll do it for Telstra. We’ll do it for Optus. We’ll do it for Vodafone. We’ll do it for anyone. Your monthly $100 spend gets you an amazing $50,000 in included services. Just amazing.”