Australian Federal Election 2022: after eight and a half years the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has still not delivered a reliable NBN high speed broadband network

(Cartoon by Mark David / @MDavidCartoons)
INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIA, 16 February 2022

It’s been eight and a half years since the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government came to power and took a wrecking ball to key policy initiatives of the Rudd & Gillard Governments – solely on the basis that these were programs initiated by the Labor Party.

Even in Opposition, one of the Coalition's targets had been the National Broadband Network (NBN).

However, unlike the price on carbon, it could not erase the NBN but was forced to tolerate its existence.

By 23 September 2020 the Morrison Government and NBN Co had declared the initial rollout of a national high speed broadband network complete and fully operational. Apparently the only thing remaining was to plan for future increases in demand.

NBN Co then closed the door and, to all intents and purposes, walked away from most of the issues both it and the Coalition Government had created by using a patchwork of different connection types to supposedly meet the needs of over 25 million people in homes and businesses scattered across est. 7.692 million square kilometres of widely varying terrain.

In 2021 in response to Internet connection problems in his own electorate a member of the Morrison Government, 

Liberal MP for Berowra Julian Leeser, tabled a private members bill - supported by seventeen MPs and senators - which attempted to make NBN Co more accountable, build better infrastructure and improve customer service.

Julian Leeser, Telecommunications, retrieved 9 May 2022:

In response to the Bill, Choice’s Alan Kirkland said: ‘It’s unacceptable for people who live in a major city like Sydney not to have mobile coverage in their home, and even worse in a bushfire-prone area. We find it puzzling that the telco industry, particularly Telstra, has been able to get away with substandard service for so long.’

Professor Alan Fels, former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, agreed that more needs to be done. He said: ‘For many years the telco industry has failed to make access to mobile phone services universally available, even in a number of suburbs. Yet such access is an essential service and vital in emergencies. After waiting for so long, it is clear that the only solution is legislation, backed by sanctions compelling it.’

That particular private member’s bill appears to have withered on the vine.

Also in 2021 a five-member panel conducted a review of regional telecommunications in Australia. One could be forgiven for wondering about the independence of this panel given a former Nationals MP for Cowper and, a business person who worked on the 2013 Nationals election campaign and previously derived consultancy work from a WA Liberal Government are among its members.

It came as no surprise that there were 16 key findings contained in the December 2021 review report, along with twelve recommendations. Although Finding 10 (highlighted below) raised an eyebrow.

Key Findings

1. Increased coordination and investment between the Australian, state and territory governments is needed to address a ‘patchwork quilt’ approach to connectivity in the regions.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 2

2. Local councils and other regional stakeholders are increasingly expected to facilitate telecommunications service delivery, but are not appropriately resourced to identify connectivity need and support the deployment of suitable solutions.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 5

3. Supply side issues, including backbone fibre and spectrum access, are barriers to competition and innovation in regional telecommunications markets.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 2

4. There is an urgent need to consider the future of the Universal Service Obligation in order to provide reliable voice services to rural and remote consumers.

Relates to Recommendations: 7, 8

5. There are significant issues with the maintenance and repair of telecommunications networks, particularly copper landlines, in regional, rural and remote areas.

Relates to Recommendations: 7, 8

6. In instances of natural disasters and emergencies, connectivity is significantly impacted by power and network outages. This reduces access to recovery and support.

Relates to Recommendations: 3

7. Mobile coverage continues to improve, but expanding reliable coverage to priority areas is becoming more difficult.

Relates to Recommendations: 9, 10

8. Increased ongoing demand for data on regional, rural and remote mobile and fixed wireless networks is not always being met, causing network congestion issues.

Relates to Recommendations: 6, 9

9. Although Sky Muster Plus has improved access to data, Sky Muster users are frustrated by insufficient data allowances, high latency and reliability issues.

Relates to Recommendations: 6

10. Current minimum broadband speeds are mostly adequate, but will need to increase over time.

Relates to Recommendations: 8

There is a certain irony in Finding 10 given that less than one month before the report was delivered to the Minister, review panel member Prof. Hugh Bradlow was tweeting the NBN on 1 November 2021 with this complaint: "Hello @NBN_Australia my Internet at Sandy Point, Vic has been out for 3 full days. Instead of all the excuses on your website (and don't blame the power - it is working just fine) can you actually give a committed time to get it fixed?

11. There are emerging technology options to meet the demand for data but their service performance has not yet been validated.

Relates to Recommendations: 4

12. Regional consumers, businesses and local governments experience difficulty in resolving telecommunications issues and providers are not adequately addressing the complex needs of regional users.

Relates to Recommendations: 5, 7

13. Regional consumers, businesses and local government need access to independent advice and improved connectivity literacy to support them in making informed connectivity choices.

Relates to Recommendations: 1, 5

14. Predictive coverage maps and other public information do not accurately reflect on-the-ground telecommunications experience. There is significant misinformation about the availability of 

telecommunications services.

Relates to Recommendations: 5, 9

15. The cost of telecommunications services remains high for vulnerable groups in remote Australia. This is impacting on their access to essential services.

Relates to Recommendations: 11, 12

16. Continued engagement with Indigenous Australians in regional, rural and remote communities is needed to address ongoing issues of access, affordability and digital ability.

Relates to Recommendations: 5, 11, 12

Over a year after the Morrison Government declared the high broadband network a success it was very evident that it was far from having that status.

Indeed, in some quarters opinion had been scathing.

InnovationAus.com: Public Policy and Business Innovation, 4 November 2021:

This week, Telstra claimed its 5G home broadband service will offer average speeds of 378 megabits per second to homes and businesses. In contrast, the average maximum speed on Fibre to the Node is 67 megabits per second, and up to 200,000 premises on the copper NBN can’t even get 25 megabits.

Imagine spending $50 billion on a copper dominated network, that’s not delivering minimum speeds required under law, and already losing its competitiveness.

That is the anti-genius of Liberal-National Party. Deceive. Implement bad technology policy at higher cost. Then spend more money to correct their mistakes. They led us down this path on broadband, and now want to do it with energy.

In 2013 the Liberals produced “modelling” known as the NBN strategic review. This elaborate sham had a sole purpose: provide political cover for abandoning fibre.

This document was then used to claim a multi-technology mix of second-rate technologies was going to be $30 billion cheaper than a full-fibre NBN.

This untruth, repeated at nauseum, relied on two tricks.

The first was pretending the copper dominated network being rolled out costs $41 billion. False. It is costing $57 billion.

The second was to claim the original plan to deploy a fibre network to 93 per cent of Australia would cost $72 billion, rather than the near $50 billion forecast under Labor.

The latter claim, which the Liberals clung to desperately, was decimated in a front-page report in the Sydney Morning Herald in February 2021.

It revealed that in late 2013 the Liberals were explicitly told deploying Fibre to the Premises was dramatically cheaper than what they claimed in public.

That advice was redacted and kept secret for seven years, and it is clear why.

If the redacted costs for fibre, along with real-world interest rates, were fed back into the strategic review “modelling”, the original fibre rollout would have cost around $53 billion.

Notably, Minister Fletcher stopped repeating his $30 billion claim since the unredacted extracts appeared in print, because he always knew it to be false.

The NBN copper rollout has now become a business case liability and looks increasingly uncompetitive against 5G.

The NBN HFC network, which relies on Foxtel Pay TV infrastructure, is arguably the most expensive and unreliable deployment of its sort in the world.

Tens of thousands of Fibre to the Curb modems across the country are also frying during storms because lightning is being conducted over the copper that leads into the home.

The government is now saying Fibre to the Curb technology will not deliver gigabit speeds, despite promising it would only a year ago.

Every fixed-line technology deployed by the Coalition is beset by technical or business case problems, except for Fibre to the Premises – Labor’s original technology of choice.

As the 2022 federal election date drew nearer the Morrison Government on 23 March bestirred itself enough to announce that:

The Morrison Government has welcomed NBN Co’s announcement that 50,000 homes and businesses will be able to order an upgrade to their NBN connection, delivering ultra-fast speeds at no upfront cost.

These are the initial customers to have access to upgrades that will allow 8 million homes, or 75 per cent of premises in the NBN fixed line footprint, to access to ultra-fast speeds by 2023.

Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, the Hon Paul Fletcher, said the on-demand upgrades will give more Australians access to the fastest broadband speeds available on the NBN.

There is no mention of ongoing costs and pricing which remain an issue.

I am honestly not sure that this is anything more than a typical election year 'announceable' which will sink down into the pile of past unmet expectations raised concerning NBN high speed broadband.

Regardless of whatever media releases the Morrison Government is sending out, the dissatisfaction with the NBN high speed broadband network remains 12 days out from election day…..

The Guardian, 8 May 2022:

The NBN rollout may have been completed, but Richard Proudfoot is still using an old ADSL internet connection, and he has to juggle his Zoom meetings around his partner’s work.

He runs a small IT business from his home in Maleny, on the Sunshine Coast, about 100km north of Brisbane, while his partner is a part-time university lecturer.

Due to their property’s terrain, NBN Co has told him he is not able to connect to fixed wireless or fixed line. While he has the option of satellite, many users have reported poor speeds and reliability. He has stuck with ADSL for the time being because he believes the tree cover and weather would adversely effect his service.

“We are very, very dependent on a reliable internet ADSL connection. To make it work for us given the limitations, we schedule internet use based on need ... we cannot do concurrent Zoom meetings so we rearrange diaries in order to cope.”

The Coalition and NBN Co declared the rollout of the then $51bn network complete in 2020. There are now 12.1m homes able to connect, and 8.5m homes on the NBN.

The high-speed network was meant to resolve the digital divide in Australia, but two years on from its completion there remains a stark difference between the haves and have-nots; those who have a decent internet service and those still waiting or suffering from poor speeds and reliability on their NBN service.

The Liberal MP Julian Leeser wrote a scathing review of the NBN in a submission to the federal government’s regional telecommunications review last year, describing it as “too slow with countless delays”.

Leeser’s northern Sydney electorate, Berowra, is a mix of suburban and semi-regional locations, meaning his constituents are living with the spectrum of NBN technologies, from fixed to wireless and satellite.

“There is too much variability in the quality of coverage across the various NBN technologies,” he said.

The pandemic forced many people to work from home and rely on their home internet more than ever before.

Leeser said that teachers had been forced to work out of McDonald’s car parks to leech the wifi for online classes, people were unable to work from home or undertake telehealth appointments, and some had even been forced to move out of the area due to their poor NBN connection…...

Many Guardian Australia readers raised problems with the project when asked what their major concerns were ahead of this month’s federal election.

One reader, Cate, who lives in Killarney Heights in the Sydney electorate of Warringah, missed out on full fibre or cable that some nearby suburbs have access to.

She says she was originally connected via the Optus internet cable but was moved over to fibre-to-the-node (FttN) on the NBN.

“Using Optus cable we rarely had dropouts. I could count on one hand the number of times over five years that we lost internet for any noticeable length of time,” she says.

Now she says they experience daily interruptions.

“Our modem takes five to 10 minutes to reconnect so this can often mean at least 25 to 50 minutes a day of disruption to our service and this is still considered acceptable by NBN and they will do nothing to fix it.”

She says she is rarely able to get the top speeds promised. In speed test results Cate provided to Guardian Australia taken between 2pm and 3pm on a weekday, the results ranged from 1.3Mbps to 40Mbps, compared to 100Mbps on her previous Optus cable…..

Around 119,000 premises that are connected to the NBN via FttN still can’t get the minimum 25Mbps download and 5Mbps upload speeds. Due to the ageing copper and environmental conditions, FttN connections will continue to get worse over time.

In February, the NBN CEO, Stephen Rue, admitted the bit rate – the number of bits that can be transferred across the network per second – would degrade between 2% and 4% every year on average across the 4m FttN connections.

The other looming factor is people switching the NBN off. Customers frustrated with the NBN might look to 5G or another service like Elon Musk’s Starlink, and threaten the ability of the network to make a return on the taxpayer investment.…...

Something to think about standing in line at the polling booths on Saturday 21 May 2022.

And the Abbott-Turnbull- Morrison Government's NBN copper saga continues......

 

One of Telstra's old pits being used by the NBN
IMAGE: Coast Community News, March 2016

Now that so many old Telstra copper-laden access pits which connect households with NBN fibre-to-the-node broadband technology are currently under flood water up and down the coast of New South Wales, it might be time to consider how all this water is impacting the integrity of the copper components in these concrete pits and the effect that this might have on current and future access to the Internet and modem-connected landlines.

Because it seems copper is still king for NBN Chair Ziggy Switkowski and his seven fellow directors.

The New Daily, 21 March 2021:

The NBN Co’s decision to continue to purchase and roll out ‘obsolete’ copper cabling over ‘future proof’ fibre-optic cables is costing Australia, telco experts say.

New figures show NBN Co has purchased 55,911 kilometres worth of copper cabling for use in the national broadband network’s footprint – enough to wrap around Australia twice.

The government-owned business has replaced 6,300 degraded copper lead-ins on fibre-to-the-kerb (FTTC) with brand new copper, it was revealed this week.

RMIT associate professor of network engineering Mark Gregory slammed NBN Co’s continued use of copper as “wasteful”.

The admission by NBN Co that it had purchased 55,911 km to boost “obsolete” copper-based connections including fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and FTTC “is shocking and should be met with outrage by taxpayers who will have to pay again, in the form of higher broadband plan costs, to have the obsolete copper based technologies replaced over the next decade,” Dr Gregory said.

“The Coalition’s NBN plan has become a national disgrace. The NBN rollout, which in reality has yet to be completed, is beset by cost and technology problems and the list of the government’s failed promises growing by the month.”

The copper figures were revealed in the Senate in response to Questions on Notice, and were 57 days overdue.

The Morrison government and NBN Co have faced criticism for being slow to answer Questions on Notice.

Last month, overdue responses to QoNs revealed that NBN Co had paid out more than $77 million in bonuses during the midst of the pandemic – nearly twice as much as the previous year…….

The NBN rollout was officially completed last year, but the Morrison government has already conceded that the many of the network’s copper-based connections already need to be upgraded.

In September, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher promised to pour more than $3 billion into upgrading millions of copper-based connections to fibre-to-the-premises by 2023.

This is on top of the cost of the rollout, which is estimated to have exceeded $57 billion…..

Labor’s shadow minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, accused Liberals of deceiving the public over the cost of fibre.

“We now know the Liberals knew back in 2013 that deploying fibre was dramatically cheaper than what they claimed in public,” Ms Rowland said.

“Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Fletcher kept this a secret and spent eight years knowingly misleading Australians to justify their copper mess.

“With waste and dishonesty as far as the eye can see – is it any wonder the cost of their copper NBN has gone from $29 billion, to $41 billion, to $49 billion and now $57 billion?”…..

From the moment then Liberal MP for Warringah Tony Abbott became Australia's prime minister the National Broadband Network became one enormous rolling disaster

This is what est. $50 billion dollar spend of taxpayer money by the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has delivered in rural and regional Australia.....

Clarence Valley Independent, 21 May 2020:

As far as stories about inept management go, the bungled provision of National Broadband Network (NBN) services for the residents of Woombah features a tangled web of politics, bureaucracy, obfuscation and buck passing. 

Seven years after the process began; a recent survey conducted by the Woombah Residents Association has revealed that 60 per cent of the village’s residents are still unable to connect to the NBN. 

The association has written to Page MP Kevin Hogan, Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher and Deputy Prime Minister Michael Mc Cormack expressing their dissatisfaction. 

The COVID-19 lockdown has served to amplify the problem, with one frustrated couple, Robin and Einion Thomas, writing to Mr Hogan: “After contacting your office my email was sent to [NBN Co’s regional manager] Ian Scott. 

“He phoned me and suggested, as we had been unable to connect to the fixed wireless tower, a satellite service would be a good option, [however], a 300Mb plan I saw was for $200 per month. 

“It was also suggested we keep our ADSL line, as satellite is limited and ADSL would be needed if we wanted to do streaming, video conferencing and working with cloud-based services. 

“…Right now [the ADSL] is struggling and this is putting additional pressures on us in our home-based working environment. 

 “Neither of the suggestions made by Ian [is] workable, acceptable or affordable to us.” 

The saga began in April 2013 when Woombah residents were informed that a 40 metre high fixed wireless (NBN) tower was going to be erected at 97 West Street – within weeks a group of residents known as the Woombah Tower Action Group (WTAG), began lobbying to prevent its construction. 

The tower was erected in December 2013 and was commissioned in March 2015. 

As it turned out WTAG’s failed campaign was on the money when it was revealed that fewer than two in ten residences were covered by the tower’s broadcast footprint. 

One of the group’s members, Dane Webb, wrote to Page MP Kevin Hogan, declaring at the time: “This has to go down in history as one of the most ridiculous exercises ever, as it [the tower’s service area] covers – wait for it – TWO complete streets and a few partial streets.” (‘NBN tower fails to deliver’, Clarence Valley Review, March 23, 2015).... 

A panacea to the problem appeared to be close in March/April 2019 when NBN Co’s regional manager, Ian Scott, advised the Woombah Residents Association that two towers – one at Mororo and another at Palmers Island – would provide NBN services to Woombah residents. 

However, according to residents, things have not improved since the towers were commissioned. 

On May 12 the residents association wrote in its media release and/or correspondence: “Despite the huge expense involved in building these additional towers fewer than 40 per cent of our community members can successfully access the NBN fixed wireless internet. 

“Woombah has a population of approximately 1,000 residents and is dependent on tourism, farming and fishing. “It is the second fastest growing community in the Clarence. 

“The population is set to expand over the next year with the development of 147 new homes in a caravan park in the village. 

“…We note that a recent media release from [Communications Minister Paul Fletcher’s] office stated: ‘The importance of fast, affordable broadband delivered quickly has never been clearer than during the current COVID-19 pandemic (27/4/2020).’ 

“We agree wholeheartedly with your statement and would like to draw your attention to the problems we in Woombah face connecting to the NBN.”

According to finder on 21 May 2020, by the end of June 2020 it is expected that:

By the end of the rollout, roughly 40% of premises will be connected via Fibre to the Node or Fibre to the Basement (also known as Fibre to the Building) – the vast majority of these will be Fibre to the Node. 

Fibre to the Node connections still rely on the copper phone lines to cover the last few hundred metres, while Fibre to the Basement runs copper into the basement of multi-dwelling buildings and relies on the building's copper wiring. 

Meanwhile, around 12% will be dependent on Fibre to the Curb, reliant on much shorter copper runs, while 19% will be lucky enough to have Fibre to the Premises running all the way into their home. 

That leaves 21% using the HFC (hybrid fiber-coaxial) cable networks, 5% on fixed-wireless and 3% on SkyMuster satellite.

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Broadband Performance Data, May 2020:

Something to think about - Part One

September 2015 to January 2019

8501.0 - Retail Trade, Australia, Jan 2019  

* All images from Twitter.

What I learnt about NBN Co this week

It is easy to lose track of what federal government-owned NBN Co is up to these days, so I did a quick search of mainstream media reports and the company website. This is what I found.

In the nine months up to 31 March 2018 NBN Co listed $1,413 million in revenue, up from $665 million for the same period last year. Nevertheless it appears the company is operating at a loss.

NBN Co’s CEO earns est. $3.62 million per annum — approximately six times more than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Million-dollar salary packages are paid to another four top executives.

More than 480 of NBN Co’s staff are on $200,000-plus salaries and 120 earn more than $300,000.

NBN Co paid $66 million in bonuses to its staff last financial year.

In February and March 2018 the company’s  three top executives spent almost $40,000 on business-class flights and accommodation during a trip to Spain to attend a conference.

Although NBN plans are advertised with speeds such as 25Mbps or 50Mbps, performance on fixed wireless drops in the evening and the CEO has stated that "We don't have the money to invest in this to take it above 6Mbps” – which means that many customers cannot get a decent image when streaming videos or live entertainment.

NBN Co has fobbed off customers 80,000 times since July last year – nine per cent of all scheduled appointments.

There were at least 42,510 formal complaints made about NBN services from January to December 2017.

More than one third of NBN users wish it had never happened, according to new research by finder.com.au released on 8 June 2018. Only 43 per cent of respondents still on an ADSL or cable Internet connection said they were looking forward to switching to NBN.

The basic NBN service is being redefined and entry-level retail prices for NBN broadband are set to rise.

Ballina not happy with second-rate NBN installation plans

The Northern Star, 4 May 2018:

BALLINA'S deputy mayor is calling on residents to speak out against about the NBNCo's plans to deliver "second class technology" to local residents.

Cr Keith Williams said he had been contacted by residents in East Ballina, Skennars Head and Lennox Head to say they would be getting "inferior" fibre to the node NBN connections.

But he said fibre to the kerb should be the minimum installation standard across the shire.

"We know that fibre to the node places more reliance on the copper network, limits potential speeds and is more expensive to upgrade," Cr Williams said.

"This places a real limit on the economic potential of the area, not just now, but potentially for years to come.

"It makes no sense whatsoever when you consider that all these areas are close to the coast and more exposed to the effects of salt water.

"This is precisely the areas where you want less reliance on copper."

Cr Williams said failure to oppose NBN rollout plans now, risked leaving residents in these areas with a second class NBN.

"NBN Co have insisted this is not second class technology, being essentially the same technology as fibre to the kerb," he said.

"In this they are correct, but they avoid the central point.

"The greater reliance on the old copper network means it is a second rate service, slower, more prone to dropouts and more expensive to upgrade.

"From my enquiries to date it seems there is no formal mechanism to seek a review of the NBN Co rollout plans.

"The only way these things change is by community pressure and adverse publicity.

"I'm asking everyone in the area to go to the NBN website, check what the rollout plans are for your house and if it says Fibre to the Node, let NBN Co know that it just isn't good enough.

"You deserve better."

Well hoorah, NBN Co is to roll out its inbuilt obsolescence across Yamba commencing in June 2018

It has been reported in local media that NBN Co will be commencing the Yamba rollout of its allegedly high speed broadband in June 2018, with Maclean and Grafton rollouts to commence in January 2019.

This news is quite frankly underwhelming.

Whatever information NBN Co was giving out obviously didn’t include the type of connection that was on offer, as this important point was not mentioned by journalists and there is contradictory information on the company's website.

These three urban areas in the Clarence Valley are yet to hear if households and businesses are being offered fibre-to-the-curb, fibre-to-the-node or fixed wireless.

Because it is certain that the best option fibre-to-the-premises isn’t on offer to regional second cousins of the big metropolitan areas.

Personally I will carefully refuse to look at any construction works taking place in Yamba come June, July and August.

The sight of all those water-filled trenches will be too depressing.

Who starts extensive in-ground construction in winter at the low-lying, high water table mouth of a floodplain, I ask you?

* Image from Hakuri Sad Party

Australian Minister for Communications and longstanding member of the far-right pressure group the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is up in arms because Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman tells some home truths

On Tuesday 17 April the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (TIO) sent out the media release in this post.

That same day the Australian Minister for Communications and longstanding member of the far-right pressure group the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), Liberal Senator for Victoria Mitch Fifield, came out fighting after the TIO report showed: complaints about services delivered over the NBN surged by 204% in the second half of 2017, compared with the same period a year earlier…. Fifield said the way the information regarding the 22,827 complaints about services delivered over the NBN was presented in the TIO report, released Tuesday, “could give the impression that responsibility for this figure rests with NBN Co”.

It looks suspiciously like the Minister is now approaching a scheduled review of telecommunications consumer protections and the complaints process with a view to quash an inconvenient truth –  that transfers to the version of the National Broadband Network (NBN) cobbled together by Tony Abbott and MalcolmTurnbull are a dismal failure for far too many Australian businesses and households.

Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman (TIO), media release, 17 April 2018:

Report highlights increase in complaints about landline, mobile and internet services

Australian residential consumers and small businesses made 84,914 complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman in the last six months of 2017 (1 July 2017 to 31 December 2017). In this period, complaints about landline, mobile and internet services, increased by 28.7 per cent compared to the same six month period in 2016.

Publishing the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s Six Monthly Update today (Tuesday 17 April, 2018), Ombudsman Judi Jones said “The telecommunications industry in Australia continues to experience significant change. An increasing range of products and services are being offered to consumers, expectations for the quality of phone and internet services are high, and the rollout of the National Broadband Network is changing the way we use telecommunications services.

“However, consumers still seem to be facing the same problems, particularly with their bills and the customer service they receive. Confidence in services being updated or transferred reliably, faulty equipment, and poor service quality were also recorded as key issues. Additionally, the wider issues relating to phone or internet problems such as debt management are concerning.”

Jones added, “Complaints about services delivered over the National Broadband Network continued to increase compared to the same six month period in 2016. This indicates the consumer experience is still not meeting expectations for all. Recent changes to regulation and an increase in our powers to resolve complaints are positive steps that will help improve the consumer experience.”

Highlights for the period 1 July 2017 to 31 December 2017 include:

* 84,914 total complaints were received

* 74,729 complaints (88 per cent) were from residential consumers

* 9,947 complaints (11.7 per cent) were from small businesses

Landline, mobile, internet, multiple services and property

Complaints for the period increased 28.7 per cent compared to the same six month period in 2016.

* 9,447 complaints (11.1 per cent) were recorded about landline phone services

* 24,923 complaints (29.4 per cent) were recorded about mobile phone services

* 23,785 complaints (28 per cent) were recorded about internet services

* 26,112 complaints (30.8 per cent) were recorded about multiple services*

* 647 complaints (0.8 per cent) were recorded about property*

* Charges and fees, unsatisfactory response from the provider (provider response), and poor service quality were the most common issues.

Small Businesses

Between 1 July and 31 December 2017 complaints from small businesses increased 15.6 per cent to 9,947 compared to the same period in 2016.

* Complaints from Small Businesses accounted for 11.7 per cent of total complaints for the period

* 2,178 complaints (21.9 per cent) were recorded about landline phone services

* 2,074 complaints (20.9 per cent) were recorded about mobile phone services

* 1,716 complaints (17.3 per cent) were recorded about internet services

* 3,937 complaints (39.6 per cent) were recorded about multiple services*

* 42 complaints (0.4 per cent) were recorded about property

*       The main issues affecting small businesses were charges and fees, unsatisfactory response from the provider (provider response), and no service.

Complaints by State

All states and territories in Australia saw a growth in complaints in the last six months of 2017 compared to the same period in 2016.

Queensland recorded the highest growth in complaints, an increase of 39.3 per cent, followed by Western Australia with 36.5 per cent.

Complaints by state (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

* Australian Capital Territory made 1,184 complaints, an increase of 11 per cent

* New South Wales made 26,914 complaints, an increase of 27.9 per cent

* Northern Territory made 504 complaints, an increase of 20 per cent

* Queensland made 16,418 complaints, an increase of 39.3 per cent

* South Australia made 6,552 complaints, an increase of 22.7 per cent

* Tasmania made 1,614 complaints, an increase of 33.1 per cent

* Victoria made 23,954 complaints, an increase of 30.5 per cent

* Western Australia made 7,381 complaints, an increase of 36.5 per cent

* The main issues affecting Australian states and territories were charges and fees, unsatisfactory response from the provider (provider response), and poor service quality

Services delivered over the National Broadband Network

Complaints about services delivered over the National Broadband Network increased 203.9 per cent to 22,827 on the same period in 2016.

* 14,055 complaints were recorded about service quality

* 8,757 complaints were recorded about delays in establishing a connection

*       The main issues affecting residential consumers and small businesses were unsatisfactory response from the provider (provider response), poor service quality, and connecting a service (connection/changing provider)

NOTES TO EDITORS

*From 1 July 2017, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman changed the recording of complaints. There are now five complaint service categories: landline phone services, mobile phone services, internet services, multiple services (where the consumer is complaining about more than one phone or internet issue), or a complaint about damage or access to property. The changes mean data will more accurately reflect the description of complaints given by residential consumers and small businesses.  The changes also make it easier to see the issues facing the telecommunication industry, helping providers improve the delivery of phone and internet services. Trend analysis will build over time from the start of this reporting period.