Regional Australians are often waiting for months to get phone services connected or fixed, according to a new Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) analysis that warned unreliable satellite services and poor mobile coverage are exacerbating “significant” service issues.

The analysis, which was compiled as a submission to the government’s latest Regional Telecommunications Review (RTR), found that the TIO received 51,854 phone and internet complaints during the three years from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2024.

That’s an average of 47 complaints per day lodged by regional Australians suffering from service faults, poor service quality, poor mobile service coverage, outages, and accessibility barriers.

This included many reports where consumers said they had to wait 5 to 6 weeks for a technician to be available to fix their telecommunications service – and often left waiting even longer if the issue can’t be fixed on the first visit.

Some service faults have been found to be caused by faulty infrastructure, which the TIO said often take months to be fixed by telcos balancing service demands in rural areas with the need to maintain continuity of service in higher-density urban areas and regional centres.

“In rare cases,” the TIO said in noting that many regional areas simply don’t have enough technicians – and those who are based on regional areas are often spread thin across a wide area –meaning that “some regional consumers may report faults for several years without any lasting improvements to their services.”

Given that regional customers often “have no choice but to depend on their landline or satellite service when there are no other options,” the agency warned that the prevalence of problems with these services was creating real dangers for consumers living in areas prone to natural disasters.

“Reliable access to telco services plays a critical role in the coordination of disaster response, recovery and in sharing timely and accurate information during major outages and crises,” the agency noted in releasing figures that, it said, show that “consumers in regional areas continue to experience unreliable connections and service quality problems.”

Some customers reported signing up for a mobile service based on promises that they would have coverage in their area, only to go home and find that they actually have no service.

Satellite services, which are meant to provide a more accessible alternative by delivering phone and broadband services anywhere on Earth with a view of the sky, had helped but were proving inconsistent – with many reports, the TIO said, where “these services stop working, or are not as fast, reliable, or stable as their previous fixed-line services” due to interference from clouds, storms, and even “nearby trees”.

“In areas where there are no alternative technologies,” the TIO found, “the consumer can at times be left without any telco service.”

Some telco customers don't even bother lodging complaints anymore. Photo: Shutterstock

Tough times for telcos

It’s hardly news that regional Australians are struggling with service issues that would never happen in urban areas – the panoply of problems unearthed during previous RTRs have prompted expanded fibre rollouts, frustrated towns going solo, and a nationwide audit of mobile coverage gaps – but the failure of new technologies to reliably bridge the digital divide has been compounded by a growing sense that telcos simply aren’t interested in improving the situation.

A recent TIO-Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC) report found that 55 per cent of Australians had experienced at least one problem with their telecommunications provider during the previous year – up from 41 per cent in 2021 – and that 31 per cent experienced more than one issue.

Despite this, 46 per cent didn’t even bother lodging a complaint with their provider due to what the report called “a worrying loss of trust in the ability of the telco industry to fix problems when they happen” – with 40 per cent of those who didn’t make a complaint saying they didn’t think it would make a difference.

Even where telcos did at least try to fix the issue, only 41 per cent of consumers said their complaint was resolved quickly.

The figures represent a confronting lack of confidence in telecommunications providers – but with Telstra recently announcing a 13 per cent drop in profits that reflects ongoing instability in the sector’s financial underpinnings, there is no guarantee that telcos will, or even want to, invest to improve their regional performance any time soon.

The sector has been hammered in recent years: Optus, for one, is wrestling with a regulator lawsuit, the prospect of significant fines, and a reputational nightmare after its 2022 data breach while News Corp recently called time on onetime investment darling Foxtel by putting the nationwide telecommunications provider – whose cables reach 1.5 million Australian households – up for sale after decades of profitable market dominance.

Telstra’s results are “clear signal that Telstra is struggling to maintain its competitive edge in a rapidly transforming industry,” telecommunications industry analyst Paul Budde said, noting that “despite substantial investments in new infrastructure, telcos are experiencing declining returns on investment—a trend that is unsustainable in the long term.”

Telstra and its rivals face “increased competition from new players in the ICT and Big Tech sectors,” Budde said.

“These global competitors, often operating with near-monopolistic power, have been far more agile in adapting to technological advancements and shifting customer needs, leaving Telstra scrambling to keep up.”