Complaints about NBN more than double

THE rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) continues to cause friction for some of its users, with a new report from Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) revealing complaints are up by more than 150 per cent in the past 12 months.

According to the TIO’s 2016-17 annual report, released last week, it is the first time there have been more complaints about internet services than mobile phones.

The report shows there were 27,195 complaints about the NBN – up 159 per cent compared to the same period a year earlier.

Internet complaints overall grew 65 per cent, compared to a rise in mobile complaints of 28 per cent and landline complaints of 30 per cent.

“Residential consumers and small businesses still have too many complaints about their customer service, a bill or faults,” Ombudsman Judi Jones said.

“Complaints about services delivered over the NBN more than doubled, and while this is somewhat to be expected given the accelerating rollout, the increase is a cause for concern.”

In response, NBN Co chief executive officer Bill Morrow said fewer than 15 percent of NBN complaints to the TIO were directed to NBN Co, which equated to about 1 per cent of the number of premises with an activated NBN connection.

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

“We meet regularly and have programs in place, some in isolation to deal with company-specific improvements, and others in collaboration to ensure end-to-end process are the best they can be.”

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) says the high number of NBN-related complaints highlighted ACCAN’s campaign for a customer service guarantee that applied to internet services, had obligations on the wholesale network as well as retail providers, and included timeframes for fixing faults and getting connected.

“The complaint statistics show that many consumers are being left with no connection or a service that is completely unusable,” ACCAN deputy chief executive officer Narelle Clark said.

“This is not acceptable and it is clear there is an urgent need for updated consumer guarantees.”