Australian telecom firms fined $22.1 million for false internet speed claims

(Reuters) -Three Australian telecom firms have been ordered by a court to pay a collective A$33.5 million ($22.08 million) in penalties for making misleading claims about speeds of some NBN internet plans, the country's competition regulator said on Friday.

The Australian Federal Court has ordered Telstra to pay A$15 million, a unit of TPG Telecom to cough up A$5 million, and imposed a fine of A$13.5 million on Optus, a unit of Singapore Telecommunications, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said.

All three telcos have admitted in court of making false or misleading statements, the regulator said, claiming nearly 120,000 customers were affected.

According to the ACCC, the false or misleading statements were made for at least 12 months in 2019 and possibly extended until 2020, related to their 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) or 100Mbps fibre to the node plans.

NBN, or National Broadband Network, is a government-run broadband network.

Telstra, TPG, and Optus did not immediately respond to Reuters requests to comment.

($1 = 1.5175 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Harshita Swaminathan; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)