Australian Internet complaints on the rise
The TIO sees a 56% jump in Australians that are unhappy with their Internet services.
The TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman) has published its latest six-monthly report, detailing the number and the rise of complaints to the service for the period between June 2016 and December 2016. In that period, complaints rose by 5.5% overall compared to the previous six-month quarter and made a jump of 33.8% compared to the same period 12 months before.
The TIO acts as the ombudsman for any complaints relating to telecommunications services in Australia, including landline and mobile telephony or Internet services. If you’re unable to achieve a satisfactory response to a complaint relating to a telecommunications service sold in Australia, the TIO acts as the industry-funded mediator to resolve such matters, but you must be able to show that you’ve first tried to resolve the complaint with your telco beforehand.
Predominantly, it appears that Australians are having Internet issues that cannot be resolved directly with their telco, with the TIO handling 24,641 complaints in the June 2016 to December 2016 time period. Compared to the previous year, that’s a jump of 53.6%.
Victorians and South Australians were the least happy customers, followed by the ACT and New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia. Northern Territorians can take a bow for having the fewest problems leading to formal TIO complaints in this period.
While the National Broadband Network (NBN) is growing in scope as we creep ever closer to its proposed 2020 finish line, the relative number of NBN complaints is still relatively low, with 4,309 complaints relating to NBN Internet services.
When the NBN rolls into your location, it becomes the default pathway for voice services as well and in that capacity, the TIO saw 3,203 complaints around NBN voice services in that six-month period. It’s a rise of 6.8% overall from the previous six months, but actually slower than the real world rollout rate of the NBN itself over the same time span.
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