Displaying items by tag: Internet services

New Zealand’s competition regulator, The Commerce Commission is moving to address concerns over increasing consumer complaints about the country’s telecommunications companies.

Complaints about phone and Internet services by small businesses have grown overall for the third consecutive quarter, with residential consumers and small businesses lodging 34,476 complaints in the three months between July and September — an increase of 3.4% on the previous quarter — and the third consecutive quarter of incremental growth in overall complaints.

New Zealand’s major telcos Spark, Vodafone, Chorus, and 2degrees will collectively pay approximately 90% of the $10 million Telecommunications Development Levy (TDL) levy to be imposed on the telecommunications industry by the country’s competition regulator The Commerce Commission.

Resolving phone and Internet issues costs Australians over $150 million per year in lost time, according to new research from Australia's communications consumers peak body, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).

Complaints about phone and Internet services decreased 4% in the last financial year ending 30 June 2020, but despite the drop residential consumers and small businesses still made 127,151 complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman over the 12-months, according to the TIO’s 2019-20 annual report.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has blasted Telstra, Optus, TPG and Dodo for letting down their customers, finding all of the telcos in breach of consumer protection rules after more than 1,500 of their customers were left without services while trying to migrate to the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Australia’s telecommunications regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) says a study it commissioned shows telco in-store sales staff may not be adequately checking that customers have the capacity to pay for the services they are purchasing.

Small businesses experiencing financial loss, signing up to unsuitable plans, breakdowns in communication when fixing faults, and lack of a suitable backup plan when phone and Internet services are disrupted, are amongst a raft of issues reported to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman(TIO) since 2016 and this year.

NBN Co, the operator of the National Broadband Network, has admitted to Australia’s competition watchdog, the ACCC, that it misled Canberra consumers who lived in areas where the NBN was operating into thinking that their telephone and Internet services supplied over the TransACT Network would be disconnected if they did not move to the NBN.

Residential consumers and small businesses made 32,441 complaints about phone and Internet services to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) over three months between January to March this year - with a massive 70% of the complaints coming from users not having a working phone or Internet service.

Internet service provider IPSTAR Broadband is offering free satellite Internet services to regional Australians during the COVID 19 shutdown.

Telecommunications consumer group ACCAN has called on Australia’s telecommunications networks to ensure that no Australian is left offline during the COVID-19 pandemic, while welcoming the Federal Government's expansion of telehealth services during the pandemic.

More than 30,000 consumers and small businesses complained about their phone and Internet services - with many complaining about problems with their bills and the quality of customer service - over a three month period to the end of September this year, according to the latest complaints report from the Telecomunications Industry Ombudsman.

There is a continuing decline in household landline telephones, according to a new report from the telecommunications regulator ACMA revealing that for the first time more than half of Australian adults rely solely on their mobile for making and receiving voice calls at home.

Telecommunications lobby group Communications Alliance has called for a redoubling of efforts by service providers and the Telecoms Industry Ombudsman on addressing unresolved telecoms customer issues.

Complaints about internet services replaced complaints over mobile services as the most complained about service type in the last financial year, according to the latest Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman report.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has welcomed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s decision to take enforcement action against telco BVivid over misleading telemarketing practices about transitioning to the NBN.

Telco BVivid has paid fines totalling $25,000 for making telemarketing calls to consumers in areas transitioning to the NBN that breached Australian Consumer Law.

Australian-listed internet service provider Spirit Telecom has acquired managed services provider Phoenix Austec, in a $1.6 million deal.

Internet service provider Spirit Telecom has paid $2.6 million to acquire Arinda IT in a move it says will expand its service offerings to the managed service provider sector.