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A group of telecommunications and internet companies have complained to the Government's competition watchdog that Telstra is waging a campaign of misinformation about the state of broadband services in Australia.
Eleven companies, including AAPT, Austar and Primus Telecom, have sent a letter of complaint to the Australian Competition
and Consumer Commission (ACCC) calling for an investigation into a series of recent public statements by Telstra about broadband.
The move comes as the Federal Government is under increasing pressure to improve broadband infrastructure around Australia following an announcement by Labor last month that it would spend $4.7 billion to build a high-speed broadband network if it won office this year.
The letter to the ACCC is part of a wider campaign being run by the 11 companies dubbed "Tell the Truth Telstra".
The so-called education campaign will see information kits issued to MPs, public information sessions held and a website created to "expose the truth behind Telstra's attempt to gain relief from regulation".
The ACCC letter and a press release issued by the group of companies picks apart a number of public statements Telstra has made about broadband services and Government regulation of the sector.
"Telstra for the last 12 months or more has embarked on a concerted campaign of misinformation designed to abolish competition and re-establish itself as a monopoly," Ian Slattery, a spokesman for Primus Telecom, said in Canberra today.
"It has sought to use its market power and financial muscle to threaten the Government and the regulator into removing the existing pro-competition safeguards which have given consumers a choice and brought about lower prices and improved services," Mr Slattery said.
A spokesman for Telstra said the company stood by any public statements it had made during the recent debate about the state of broadband services.
"Telstra welcomes the fact other industry players have joined the broadband debate, unfortunately all we've seen today is more anti-Telstra rhetoric rather than serious proposals about how Australia will get the 21st century broadband network it really needs," the spokesman said in a statement.
"Let's be clear about what these companies want: they want to preserve an out of date phone network that has been pumped up to provide broadband, that lets them profit by serving customers who live within one or two kilometres of city phone exchanges," he said.
"Telstra thinks Australia deserves better than that - a 21st century broadband network."
Telstra and a rival group of companies known as the G9 consortium are reported to have met with Federal Communications Minister Helen Coonan in recent weeks to showcase competing plans to build new optical fibre broadband networks.
The G9 group are said to have warned Senator Coonan against backing Telstra's plan, saying it would lock Australia into a new broadband monopoly.
- AAP
