The two largest telcos in Australia, Telstra and Optus, have blamed the complicated and underperforming NBN service as being responsible for the unprecedented increase in complaints that the two service providers received in the last financial quarter.
A report published by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman titled ‘Complaints in Context’ aims to measure and rank the industry’s carriers based on the level of complaints they receive per quarter.
According to this report, which gives a figure that represents the amount of complaints per 10,000 services, Telstra’s complaints were up to 10.0, from 9.3 and 6.8 over the previous two quarters respectively.
Optus shared a similar fate with a figure of 10.1, up from 9.3 and 6.7 over the same period. The nearest provider in terms of scale, Vodafone, is sitting pretty at a score of 4.5 – although they don’t offer NBN plans.
Fingers out and ready to point
A spokesperson for Telstra told CRN News that a large number of these complaints came from customers shifting to NBN services, and that the number of such customers “will increase again as the NBN migration ramps up over the next two years”.
Optus told the same publication a very similar story, with both of the major ISPs suggesting an increase in support for NBN-related issues is needed, while simultaneously making it clear that the service itself is at fault.
There is nothing surprising about the finger-pointing, given the ongoing feud between NBN Co and the ISPs, both parties have blamed each other profusely for the service’s lack of popularity.
How will NBN Co respond this time? Will they once more claim that the providers are misrepresenting the available services to their customers by instigating a ‘price war’? We’ll find out soon enough.
- Here's everything you need to know about the NBN speed tiers, so you don't end up on the other end of the complaining stick.
