Complaints against the quality of internet services are legion and consumer organisations are flooded with allegations of over-billing, improper connectivity and slow speeds of downloading. The amounts per month involved are so small that most consumers do not take the trouble of dragging the internet service provider (ISP) to consumer courts or the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. In worst case scenarios, they just change their ISPs.

A consumer in Kerala however, took an erring ISP to a consumer court in a landmark case - M/s Asianet Satellite Communications Ltd and another vs G Arun Govind in the Kerala State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

Arun is a business executive and paid a sum of Rs4,280 for an ADL high speed internet connection, as directed by the company. Some time after starting usage of the service, Arun noticed that the speed of downloads was quite low and complained to the company. The company promised to look into the matter, but to no avail.

Arun filed a complaint with the district consumer dispute redressal forum which upheld his contentions and ordered the company to refund him his deposit of Rs3,110 with interest at 14.5% and compensation of Rs1,500 plus litigation costs of Rs1,000. The company went in appeal against the order to the state commission.

The commission noted that the lower court had asked an expert, who was a B Tech in Information Technology, to carry out an inspection of the service provided to Arun. The expert had given a clear opinion that the service was 2,738 KBPS slower than what was promised in the advertisement of the company. The company, in response, stated that the speed of the service depended on the number of users and the quality of the instrument being used by the consumer.

The commission then noted that the variation in speed in the transmission was not mentioned by the company by any evidence showing that this was brought to the notice of the consumer, prior to purchase of the service. It also noted that in subsequent advertisements of the same company, it was mentioned that the transmission speed was twice that of any other telephone modem, against its earlier advertisements advertising a 500 times speed.

Finding no merit in the appeal, the state commission confirmed that order of the district forum and dismissed the appeal.