Tassie internet angst skyrockets

TASMANIANS made almost 3000 complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman last financial year — an increase of 38 per cent on the previous year.

The state’s residential consumers and small businesses made 2964 complaints between July 1 last year and June 30 this year, with internet services (40 per cent) making up the bulk of issues ahead of landline phones (32.3) and mobiles (27.5).

Many of the complaints comprised of multiple issues conveyed to the Ombudsman.

The biggest issues were customer service (1463 com- plaints), billing (1139), faults (1051) and complaint handling (978).

Residential customers came in with close to 89 per cent of total complaints, with small businesses at just over 10 per cent. The top areas for complaints were Launceston with 185, Bellerive with 169, Devonport with 157, Glenorchy with 138 and Hobart with 134.

TasICT chief executive Will Kestin said the increase could be in part due to the rapid rollout of NBN in Tasmania, which could cause interruption to services.

“Certainly the suburbs mentioned all had extensive work done in this regard and Tasmania has had more work than other parts of county,” he said.

However, NBN Co Tasmania manager Russell Kelly said the state had the lowest rate of internet complaints per activated premises in Australia. “We have the secondlowest rate of complaints for combined internet and landline services per activation, behind the Northern Territory,” he said. “The TIO report is about all communications. For example it includes mobile phones — that’s not the NBN,

“Some of the complaints about the internet also don’t involve the NBN.”

Ombudsman Judi Jones said overall, the complaints showed people were frustrated by an inability to rely on technology. “For the first time, complaints about internet services are now higher than complaints about mobile phones,” she said.

Tasmania made up just 2 per cent of the 158,016 complaints nationally.