ACCC's Groundhog day over broadband advertising concerns

Stuart Corner
Friday, 27 October 2006 07:59

Opinion and Analysis

Two years ago turning off broadband might have been a possibility. Today it certainly is not: no one is going to go back to dialup.

Broadband ISPs, whether we like them or not, are now providers of an essential service. As such it is time that they, and particularly their peak industry body, recognised their responsibilities to the community and took collective action to respond to the ACCC's concerns.

It is not difficult. They simply get together and, through the IIA, draw up a code of practice for how broadband services are advertised/described/sold. This can be entirely voluntary: those ISPs who choose can sign up to it. The model is very well established with numerous industry codes drawn up by the telecoms industry collaboratively and signed up to by those that choose, through the Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF), now a division of The Communications Alliance.

Many of its codes are registered with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and conformance is mandatory. Now there's a thought. That should solve this problem once and for all.