A federal court in Australia determined Telstra misled almost 9,000 broadband customers about their upload speeds, after the country’s competition watchdog took legal action.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) accused Telstra of reducing the upload speeds of customers on its Belong National Broadband Network (NBN) plan from 40Mb/s to 20Mb/s in 2020 without informing them, while continuing to charge the same price.

In a statement, ACCC commissioner Liza Carver explained the operator failed to reduce the price of the downgraded service despite the wholesale cost charged by NBN Co was AUD7.00 lower a month.

While Telstra never stated the maximum upload speed in the Belong plan, the court found consumers would have “reasonably construed the service… was the same in all material aspects, including upload speed, as it had always been”.

The ACCC added it is seeking declarations, penalties, consumer redress, costs and other orders, with the court to determine the penalty and any consumer redress at an upcoming hearing.

Carter insisted it is “simply unacceptable for a supplier of essential services to mislead consumers when reducing the quality of the services”, adding it expects better from the country’s largest retail broadband internet service provider.

Telstra was fined AUD15 million in late 2022 for misleading internet customers about the actual speeds they could deliver using the NBN.