CANBERRA, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Australians lodged more than 65,000 complaints about their telecommunication providers in the second half of 2016, a 33.8 percent increase compared to the same six months in 2015, according to figures released by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman on Thursday.
Customers, including individuals and small businesses, lodged 65,760 complaints to the industry watchdog in the second half of last year, mostly about Internet services (up 53.6 percent to 24,641 complaints) as a result of the rollout of the controversial government-backed National Broadband Network (NBN).
Complaints about cell phone services also increased by 18.8 percent (up to 23,331 from 19,639) while landlines were also a cause of pain for consumers.
Telco Industry Ombudsman Judi Jones said customer service was the biggest gripe followed by billing issues and payment problems, while rollout of the NBN was also a sore point.
"What we know is that these services are very important to people's social and business lives and we have higher expectations because we've moved on from the days of the dial-up modem," Jones said.
"There have been a lot of changes in the industry as well - rollout of the NBN, new entrants, and existing providers changing their offerings."
Interestingly, Jones added, 13 percent of all complaints came from small businesses - something she said was "problematic."
"It can be quite problematic for them, like even not being able to access EFTPOS could really impact the running of their business," she said.
In addition, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network's CEO Teresa Corbin said that only a select number of Australians choose to go all the way to the ombudsman with their complaints, describing the figures as just "tip of the iceberg."
"Our research shows only a few consumers actually do escalate to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, it's actually a very low percentage of people and usually people that are so desperate that they have to make the time to resolve it," Corbin told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Thursday.
"The truth is this is only the tip of the iceberg... I think we can be sure that there's a broader discontent out there."
