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July 22, 2008
Are we being heard?
Is it possible someone at the ACCC reads Bleeding Edge? In last week's column - which we have been very tardy about posting [below] - we pointed out the fact that the consumer and competition authority has overlooked the pathetic free data allowances and savage excess data charges of local mobile carriers. Yesterday they announced they would investigate whether our telcos are misleading customers.
While this is a good start, it doesn't seem to us to go far enough. Chairman Graeme Samuel is urging customers to read the fine print. He should be asking Telstra, for instance, why it is the world's least friendly iPhone carrier, offering only 5MB of free data, which is about a third of what a four-hour Texas Hold 'Em session chewed up, according to a report in the Whirlpool iPhone forum. He should be asking why the telcos' plans are so difficult to interpret, and why overseas operators tell customers plainly how many free minutes they get, but local operators are allowed to put a dollar value on voice minutes. As we pointed out, variable flag fall, 30-second call rates and metering intervals make it impossible even for skilled cryptographers to translate dollars into minutes.
We've been pushing Melbourne PC User Group to establish an Australian digital consumers advocacy group, and we are getting a good response. Someone has to protect the consumer. As we've pointed out previously, the ACA really isn't doing a good enough job, although it is quoted in the article by Asher Moses.
Posted by cw at July 22, 2008 11:27 AM
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Comments
Jeremy Howard gave his thoughts on the subject on the 12 0:clock news on ABC. today,
Posted by: Maurie10 at July 22, 2008 04:13 PM