Regional telecommunication customers are waiting years for reported faults to be fixed and are being sold mobile plans for areas with no coverage.
New data collected by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has revealed Australians living outside of metropolitan hubs were experiencing significant issues with their telcos.
Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said between July 2021 and June this year her office received 51,854 phone and internet complaints from consumers living in regional, rural and remote Australia about faults, poor service quality, poor mobile service coverage, outages and accessibility barriers.
Ms Gebert said regional consumers said faults and service problems could take longer to be resolved in regional locations, with cases of faults reported over several years without any lasting improvements to services.
She said unlike people in metropolitan areas, regional consumers may have no choice but to depend on landline or satellite services and, often, mobile coverage was poor in the regions.
“(We) also heard about consumers who sign up to a mobile service after being told that their mobile will work in their area, but when returning home to a remote location find they have no service.
“This can be especially dangerous for consumers living in areas at greater risk of bushfires, cyclones, floods and other natural disasters.”
Ms Gebert said reliable access to telco services played a critical role in the coordination of disaster response, recovery and in sharing timely and accurate information during major outages and crises.
“While satellite services may resolve connectivity issues for some consumers, these services can be highly dependent on weather conditions.”
She said the data showed consumers in regional areas continued to experience unreliable connections and service quality problems.
“Satellite is also a more expensive service type, and may not be affordable for all consumers.”
Ms Gebert said the telco regulatory framework needed to be modernised to ensure regional consumers can have reliable telco services.
She said recommendations to improve phone and internet services for regional, rural and remote Australian’s included:
- One coherent, robust and modern regulatory framework rather than the USO scheme, SIP regime, and CSG regime to offer standards for different services.
- The SIP regime should have clear benchmarks and standards so that consumers can seek compensation from a SIP.
- In reviewing the USO framework, the government should consider the essential nature of mobile services, to ensure the regulatory framework meets community expectations.
- Mobile coverage maps should be standardised, accessible to all consumers, and should include information about geographical location, quality of coverage, and data speeds.
- First Nations consumers should be consulted on plans about how to help close the digital inclusion gap.
- There needs to be an increased focus on mobile accessibility to improve connectivity for First Nations consumers living in regional areas.
Read more in the TIO’s submission to the 2024 Regional Telecommunications Review.
