Report: NBN Customers Want More Speed (But Aren’t Willing To Pay)

A recent survey conducted by that ACMA has found that a third of customers had prolonged loss of service while transferring to the NBN and that less than half of customers on 50Mbps connections were satisfied with their speeds. However, cost remains the biggest motivating factor for customers when choosing a plan.

Australian Communications and Media Authority has released the results of a NBN consumer experience survey that looked into residential and small businesses that connected to the NBN in 2017.

When asked about factors driving their choice of NBN plan, cost was by far the biggest factor, listed as an important factor by 86% of respondents. Connection speed (79%), data inclusion (78%), confidence in faults being fixed (80%) and keeping their phone number (82%) were all significant factors.

About one in three households reported a loss of service while transitioning from their previous service to the NBN. Although people with satellite service were less likely to be effected by this.

Loss of service typically took a while to resolve. Only 17% of effected customers had service restored within 24 hours. Of the remaining customers, 35% took one to seven days, 34% took one to four weeks and 13% went without internet connection for over a month.

Approximately seven out of ten NBN customers experienced some sort of issue or fault after connecting to the service with 49% of those effected complaining of drop-outs.

36% of customers experienced slow data during the evenings, two-thirds of which reported it as happening often. Similarly, 33% of customers reported slow data at all times.

In a double-whammy, people that had a loss of service during the connection period were more likely to experience faults afterwards and were twice as likely to experience three or more faults than other customers.

Despite these issues only 31% of respondents contacted their RSP to make a complaint. Of those who did make complaints, 27% claimed to have made six or more complaints about their service. 49% of complaints are currently considered unresolved.

While people with 100Mbps connections were the most satisfied with their speeds (62%), only 44% of households on 50Mbps reported that they were satisfied.

The overall results paint an interesting picture of the NBN landscape and show mixed results from those who have connected to the service.