ACCC slaps Activ8me for claiming endorsement by consumer watchdog

Activ8me has been hit with a AU$12,600 penalty and issued with an infringement notice by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for claiming the watchdog ranked it as the best NBN satellite retailer.

The ACCC alleged on Monday that between November and January, the retailer had made “false and misleading representations” when it claimed to be “Australia’s #1 Sky Muster provider by the ACCC” on its website.

“The ACCC does not endorse or approve particular businesses and it is imperative that consumers trust our name and logo when it is used,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said in a statement.

“As soon as we became aware of the misuse of our report findings and logo, we contacted Activ8me and issued an infringement notice. Activ8me has since removed the representations. This penalty serves as a warning to companies that we will act swiftly if they misrepresent the ACCC.”

Activ8me is the trading name of Australian Private Networks, which holds just shy of 35 percent market share of NBN satellite customers. Its almost 29,000 customers put it ahead of SkyMesh on 20,000, and TPG with 11,000.

One third of all NBN satellite customers are on a 12Mbps service, while the remaining two-thirds are on 25Mbps.

NBN raised the data quotas available on satellite services to 300GB per month in October. Plans are separated into a peak period between 7am and 1am, and an off-peak period, with NBN also enforcing a fair use policy that caps customers on their data usage.

Under NBN’s Corporate Plan 2018-21, around 240,000 premises are able to order a satellite service although 400,000 will be eligible.

Last week, statistics released by the company responsible for deploying the National Broadband Network across Australia showed the Northern Territory has the highest percentage of premises with fibre to the premises connections.

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