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Mobile phone complaints decrease – but we’re not happy with our internet!

Our mobile phone providers must have started listening to us – now we just need our internet service providers to start doing the same!

According to a new report into telecommunications industry complaints, less of us are having to make formal complaints about our mobile phone providers.

But while that’s the good news – unfortunately complaints about internet service providers are on the rise.

It’s all about the NBN….

  • Our frustrations about faults with NBN services have led to a whopping jump of almost 150% more complaints about NBN faults.
  • And complaints about NBN connections have also risen by more than 60%.
  • There’s also been a more than 20% increase in general internet complaints, about issues like internet speeds.

Sure, the NBN is a huge new infrastructure rollout, and is bound to cause some hassles for people that result in complaints.

And while these complaint numbers might sound significant, they’ve occurred while the number of people connected to the NBN has doubled – so we guess it’s not all bad news.

But fortunately, less of us are having to complain!

In fact, despite the big jump in complaints about the NBN, apparently the overall number of complaints to the Telecommunications Ombudsman actually decreased by almost 10% last year.

  • Of the complaints that were made, about 12% of them were NBN related.
  • People have complained about
  • delays in getting connected to the NBN
  • NBN faults
  • internet dropouts

Other than the NBN, what are people complaining about?

83% of complaints made to the Telecommunications Ombudsman last year were by customers from these 5 service providers –:

  • Telstra
  • Optus
  • Vodafone
  • iiNet
  • TPG

The most common overall issues that customers complained about were

  • billing and payment hassles
  • customer service problems
  • faults
  • complaints handling
  • contracts

So who’s doing the best job?

  • Among the overall complaints made, the biggest jump in complaints was from iiNet customers – complaints from them jumped by over 48%.
  • Optus also have some work to do, with an increase in complaints of just over 18%.
  • And complaints about TPG were up by more than 7%.
  • But Telstra have had a win, with an overall drop in complaints of just over 3%.
  • And the best result goes to Vodafone, who managed to reduce their number of new complaints by almost 60% since last year.

Mobile customers are much happier overall

  • Generally speaking, our mobile phone providers must have finally started listening to us, as complaints about them dropped by over 28% in the last year.
  • And less of us are having to complain about issues with coverage, excess data and roaming charges.

Who’s your telco? How happy are you with your mobile phone and internet service providers?