• Complaints to the TIO about services delivered over the nbn™ network have dropped by 30% when taking into account the increase in the number of active services
• nbn continues to work with retail service providers and industry to improve consumer experience

The latest half-yearly Report from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), released today, shows progress being made by nbn and industry in reducing the number of complaints to the TIO about services delivered over the nbn™ network, but that there is opportunity to further improve the consumer experience.

The TIO Report tracks, among other metrics, complaints concerning faults and connection delays on services delivered over the nbn™ network from 1 July to 31 December 2016 (H1 FY17). It does not distinguish between complaints that are identified on the nbn™ network and those that are identified on the retail service provider’s network.

The Report shows:

• There has been a 30% reduction in complaints about services delivered over the nbn™ network from the previous half-year figures when adjusted for the total number of activated premises.
• An improvement in the rate of complaints concerning faults to 27 complaints for every 10,000 premises (0.27%) activated on the nbn™ network in H1 FY17 down from 35 complaints (0.35%) in H2 FY16.
• An improvement in the rate of complaints concerning connection delays to 56 complaints for every 10,000 new premises (0.56%) activated on the nbn™ network during the half-year in H1 FY17 down from 91 complaints (0.91%) in H2 FY16.

nbn Chief Customer Officer John Simon said the statistics were moving in the right direction, particularly in the second half of last calendar year. nbn is  working with retail service providers to further improve the overall experience for households and businesses.

“With about 30,000 households and businesses being connected to services over the nbn™ network every week, an increase in the individual number of issues reported to the TIO reflects the acceleration of the rollout, however from an nbn perspective, we need to continue to improve the consumer experience as we further ramp up,” Mr Simon said.

“That is exactly why nbn is working in collaboration with retail service providers to better educate consumers and business owners about how to get the best experience possible from their internet connection while also improving end to end processes.”

nbn encourages people to report any issues directly to their service provider, who, if they are unable to rectify the fault, will escalate it to nbn. This is important because there can often be issues affecting a service that is outside of the nbn™ network, like equipment quality, software, broadband plans and how each service provider designs its network.