SingTel Optus misled Australians in print, television and online advertisements for its broadband service that promised data plans customers weren’t likely to receive, a federal court judge ruled.

SingTel Optus, a unit of Southeast Asia’s biggest phone operator Singapore Telecommunications, advertised broadband plans that offered up to 170 gigabytes of data per month for a set price, while noting in fine print if customers exceeded a set limit during peak hours, the whole service would be slowed to 64 kilobytes per second, a fraction of the broadband speed that can be as high as 100,000 kilobytes per second.

 

“This advertisement is misleading, seriously so,” Judge Nye Perram said of a television ad featuring a moose with oversized antlers. The disclaimer outlining the limits of the offer is only discernible by “often using the pause button,” the judge said.

 

Singtel Optus can’t rely on call centers or hard-to-read print for disclosure if the main message of an advertisement is misleading, the judge ruled, setting a bar for other Australian companies that rely on fine print to clarify limitations in an ad.

 

Perram, who read the verdict from the bench and said a written version would be available Nov. 2, plans to hold a hearing later to determine the penalties to impose on SingTel Optus. A date for the hearing hasn’t been set.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which sued SingTel Optus, is seeking an order forcing the company to run corrective ads and pay fines.

 

The judge today issued an order prohibiting SingTel Optus from again running the ads. The company had stopped the campaign last month, a move Perram said may have been “opportunistic.”

 

Television, billboard and newspaper advertising directs potential customers to call the telecommunications company, or go to its web site, Matthew Darke, SingTel Optus’s lawyer said at a hearing earlier this week. The customers get complete disclosure of the limitations of the service from the call center or the web site, he said.

 

Consumers research broadband offerings before purchasing, according to Optus’s studies, Darke said.

 

“Consumers don’t purchase broadband services on impulse,” he said.