The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) wants NBN customers struggling with slow connection speeds to contact their service provider as they may be eligible for a refund.

Telstra, Optus, TPG, iiNet, Internode, Dodo, iPrimus and Commander have all admitted that they likely made false or misleading representations about the connection speeds customers with fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) connections could experience, the ACCC says.

It explains that these providers advertised and sold NBN plans with maximum theoretical speeds – for example 100 megabits per second download and 40 Mbps upload ­ even though the technology meant these speeds were never achievable for many consumers.

Since November 2017, the ACCC has accepted undertakings from each of these eight providers that they would contact more than 142,000 affected consumers to offer them a range of options, such as moving to a lower speed plan of their choice, or exiting their contract and receiving a refund.

“A large proportion, two in three affected consumers, have not responded to the letter or email from their (provider). They may be eligible for refunds, some in the hundreds of dollars,” said ACCC Acting Chair Mick Keogh.

“The ACCC is urging NBN customers to contact their NBN retailer if they have received a letter or email offer of a remedy, or think they might be entitled to a remedy.”