With Optus and iiNet topping the rankings, there was a three-way tie for third spot between Telstra, TPG and Dodo, all of which had a customer satisfaction rating of 69% in July.

Annual winner Southern Phone dropped out of the top five leading home phone service providers in July, which Roy Morgan says indicates the high level of competition in the market.

Roy Morgan says Optus’ win builds on victories earlier in 2018, and according to the research firm’s chief executive Michele Levine, Optus’ string of victories for Home Phone Provider Customer Satisfaction has the telco in prime position to win the annual award in the category for the first time.

“Optus has now won a string of monthly awards in the category and is best placed to take out the annual award for the first time with its main competition coming from July runner-up iiNet," the research firm said.

“iiNet is the only rival telco to win a monthly award in the category so far in 2018 and is also the only top five leading telco to improve its customer satisfaction over the last year, up by 4% to 71% in July. iiNet last won the annual award in the Home Phone Provider category in 2011-12.

“The narrow win for Optus over iiNet in the Home Phone Provider category reverses the results released last week for Home Broadband Service Provider Customer Satisfaction for July which showed iiNet (76%) just ahead of Optus (73%).”

Top 5 for Home Phone Provider Customer Satisfaction July 2018 vs July 2017