Capitalising on the release of the Choice ISP satisfaction survey, Labor Shadow Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, has sought to highlight NBN failings and those of Communications Minister Mitch Fifield, and those of Turnbull.
Rowland reminds us of key Choice ISP satisfaction survey findings:
- 62% of Australian consumers experienced Internet problems over the last six months, with NBN users reporting they faced slow speeds and drop outs 76% of the time.
- 60% of people on the NBN had issues with their provider in the last six months – 44% of those issues were related to very slow speeds.
- 42% reported disconnections/dropouts/variable performance issues with their NBN provider in the past six months, while 31% mentioned problems connecting to the NBN.
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“Retail Service Providers, nbn and Service Delivery Partners are scaling to meet this challenge and we have several collaborative initiatives underway to improve processes and end user (EU) satisfaction. While we are heading in the right direction and steadily improving the majority of Service Levels including nbn Activation performance, the End User satisfaction is trending down.”
Rowland then notes that it is “no secret that Fibre to the Node (FttN) is a significant driver of dissatisfaction – this was confirmed through the release of NBNCo’s internal survey data from February 2017 which shows FTTN is the least recommended technology (PDF link) by Australian consumers".
Product: February 2017 Advocacy (quoting QON 362, Additional Estimates, March 2017 – PDF link)
- Fibre to the Premise – 61%
- Sky Muster – 49%
- HFC – 46%
- Fibre to the Node – 41%
“To put this in context,” explains Rowland, “in April the Communications Minister declared 2017 would be ‘the year of the customer’, yet some odd testimony at the NBN Joint Standing Committee on 23 June 2017 (see page 62 and 63, PDF link) revealed his Department had not decided whether to make a submission to the review of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), and furthermore were still “considering” whether to even meet with the consultants undertaking the review.”
Incredulously, Rowland asks “what exactly is there for the Government to 'consider' when it comes to dealing with consumer frustrations with the NBN?
“This indifference is remarkable given the TIO is at the epicentre of complaints. It is also bizarre that the ‘issues paper’ for the TIO review (PDF link) does not make a single mention of the NBN.”
Rowland concludes by stating: “It really shows just how out of touch Malcolm Turnbull is when it comes to making this 'the year of the customer'. As usual, he’s all talk and no action.”
