Internet complaints skyrocket in city

TOOWOOMBA residents are increasingly frustrated with their broadband services, with a surge in complaints about faults and delays to the National Broadband Network.

Complaints about the network are up 42 per cent in Queensland with a majority of the 28,988 complaints coming from Toowoomba.

Australian broadband services are in disarray as the telecommunication industry's peak body revealed complaints about internet access skyrocketed 64% this year, and outnumbered mobile phone gripes for the first time.

A growing number of complaints about faults and delays to National Broadband Network services helped fuel the trend, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman annual report revealed, though complaints across the communications industry surged by more than 40% compared to last year.

Despite the huge influx in complaints, Ombudsman Judi Jones said consumer frustration with telecommunications services was even higher as complaints made to the TIO were a last resort, only lodged after communications with providers broke down.

“It takes a lot of energy to pursue a complaint so people don’t do it for one bad experience. It tends to be when things have gone wrong repeatedly, or when there’s a mixture of issues,” Ms Jones said.

Australians lodged more than 158,000 complaints about poor telecommunications experiences in the financial year to June – up from almost 112,000 last year – including 64,892 complaints about internet services alone.

Ms Jones said this year was the first time broadband services attracted more complaints than mobile phone issues, and demonstrated Australians’ growing reliance on the technology.

“We are much more dependent on internet services now so we get frustrated when things aren’t going well,” she said.

“We wouldn’t put up with the speed of a dial-up modem any more.”

Complaints about NBN services surged at an even higher rate, soaring 159% over the year, with most complaints about faults and connection delays.

Ms Jones said the TIO had expected a rise in NBN complaints as more households and businesses connected to the network but called the scale of grievances “a concerning trend”.

In a statement, NBN Co said the increase in complaints was “regrettable” but came as the network connected more

than one million premises over the past six months.

“It is important to note that no large-scale construction project has ever been problem-free,” the statement read.

“We are working with retail service providers and industry as a priority to improve these figures and the overall experience for customers.”

The TIO report showed most complaints centred on customer service, followed by billing, faults, and complaints handling.