The NBN has drawn the chagrin of Aussie customers as internet service complaints rise.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) released it annual report on Thursday which revealed that while complaints over mobile services fell during the past financial year, fixed-line internet and NBN related complaints rose significantly.

Australians seem slightly more content with their mobile service providers with complaints at their lowest level in nine years. But it was a different story for internet service providers as complaints rose by 22 per cent. Australia’s much maligned internet speeds were central to the spike in complaints.

“Consumers told us that slow data speed was the biggest problem with internet services,” chief Ombudsman Judi Jones said on Thursday.

“New complaints about internet data speed increased by 48 per cent,” she said.

A growing number of people have registered their aggravation about their NBN service, the data shows. Complaints about the mostly taxpayer-funded project more than doubled during the year, and made up 12 per cent of the total complaints lodged with the ombudsman.

“We saw nearly a 100 per cent increase in the number of NBN related complaints this year, but the rate of growth is lower than the growth of active services” Ms Jones said.

“Delays in connections to the network, faults including unusable services, and dropout of services were regularly reported, which is of concern.”

New complaints about faults on NBN services jumped by 147.8 per cent, while complaints about NBN connections rose by 63.2 per cent, the TIO said.

NBN chief executive officer Bill Morrow.Source:Supplied

A project of such magnitude was always going to be plagued with difficulties and setbacks but the findings in the TIO report won’t help the company’s sometimes beleaguered image.

A recent survey conducted by finder.com.au showed many Australians were apathetic about connecting to the country’s biggest ever infrastructure project.

The survey of more than 2000 people published this week showed nearly one third (31 per cent) of Aussies who don’t have NBN access aren’t fussed about accessing the high speed internet connection. It also highlighted the fact that 10 per cent of Australians who live in an NBN-ready home but haven’t activated their service.

Shadow Communications Minister Michelle Rowland took the opportunity to lay the boot into what is widely considered the Coalition’s version of the NBN saying the high level of complaints “are a damming indictment on the Turnbull Government, which has shown blatant disregard for the lived experience of consumers on the NBN or trying to get connected.”

The NBN has more than doubled the number of serviceable premises to almost 1.2 million from 485,000 in the previous financial year so it’s only natural that complaints would rise.

“From an NBN perspective, one fault or complaint is one too many, and we will continue to enhance our construction and activation processes and work with our RSPs (retail service providers) to improve service levels and customer satisfaction,” an NBN spokesperson told news.com.au.

THE OVERALL BREAKDOWN

Mobile complaints may have dropped by nearly a quarter but they still accounted for more than a third of all complaints.

Overall, the total number of 112,518 complaints were split fairly evenly across mobile (36.6 per cent), internet service (34.6 per cent) and landline service (28.8 per cent).

Major problem areas such as coverage, excess data and roaming charges all decreased.

“Complaints about mobile services have reduced due to better product offerings from telcos including higher data allowances and increased investment in mobile infrastructure,” said Ms Jones.

Some of that discontent has refocused on home internet providers. New complaints about internet service rose by 22 per cent to the highest level in five years, the TIO said.

When it came to internet connections, the biggest issues were slow data speeds, long waits for connections and repairing unreliable services.

According to Ms Jones the total number of new complaints about mobile, landline and internet services dropped 9.6 per cent in financial year of 2015-16. However that trend appears to have levelled out and begun to head in the other direction.

From July to September 2016, new complaints rose by 25.7 per cent on the same period last year.

HOW THE TELCOS FARED

• Telstra — Australia’s biggest telco held steady in its customer satisfaction and saw a slight decrease in complaints of 3.2 per cent.

• Vodafone — Vodafone has continued its run of significantly improved customer service and had a huge drop in complaints of 59.5 per cent compared to last year.

• Optus — There was an 18.2 per cent increase in new complaints about Optus, due to an increase in complaints about both landline and internet services.

• iiNet — iiNet registered the highest level of telco complaints for the company in six years with a 48.2 per cent increase. The disappointing showing comes after TPG took over the company late last year.

• TPG — TPG also saw a rise in new complaints with a 7.4 per cent spike.