What Do NBN Customers Complain About?

Anyone who’s not in an area which has current National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout plans is complaining about the fact they have no prospect of high-speed connections in the near future. But what are actual customers who can get on the NBN complaining about?

Picture: Stephan Ridgway

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has released its first figures covering complaints about NBN services. By far the dominant issue: the speed at which NBN connections are installed in the first place. Even if you’re an in NBN-serviced area, it seems not everyone is being hooked up as rapidly as they would like.

During the 2013-2014 financial year, the TIO received a total of 3982 complaints about the NBN. The majority related to delays in setting up the connection: 1122 internet connections and 783 landline connections had problems. More than 500 across the two groups were related to missed appointments. NBN-related complaints comprised a total of 18 per cent of TIO investigations in that period (note that investigations are not the same as complaint totals).

It’s perhaps to be expected that a relatively new technology such as the NBN would attract complaints and require multiple investigations, and it’s also worth noting that such complaints would involve multiple ISPs. 3982 might seem a large number, but it’s tiny compared to the complaints lodged about mainstream providers. NBN Co says it signed up 140,000 new customers in the most recent financial year — so that means 136,000 didn’t make a complaint.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


9 responses to “What Do NBN Customers Complain About?”