Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Judi Jones. Credit:Paul Jeffers The Ombudsman saw complaints reach historical lows last year only for its phones to start ringing again as the mass migration from Telstra's old copper network onto the National Broadband Network began to ramp up. And it might only get worse with about 9.5 million households and businesses due to switch broadband contracts in the next few years. Change brings complaints Jones says there is no doubt the national broadband network is leading to increased complaints as it forces millions to choose a new broadband plan.

"Whenever there is change an Ombudsman scheme is likely to get more complaints," she says. Judi Jones can't pin-point why consumers seem so disappointed with the NBN. Credit:Paul Jeffers "Sometimes people misunderstand what they are buying or its not explained to them and its all a learning process." Next week the competition watchdog will release an updated market report showing how many customers are choosing which speeds with each major retailer. It is also keeping a very close eye on misleading marketing material released by telcos and threatening legal action. Bill Morrow says consumers need to be more aware of what speeds are available. Credit:Daniel Munoz

Phrases such as "superfast" or "very fast" or "high speed" or "high performance" and NBN Co's own advertising of video calls and holograms might be why consumers expect noticeable improvement when the NBN arrives. Even so, Ms Jones can't pin-point why consumers seem so disappointed with the NBN. Cleaning up in-home wiring can boost speeds by significant amounts, leading to confusion about who is the blame for slower than expected speeds. Credit:Nic Walker For the vast majority of complaints we don't know what the problem ended up being. Ombudsman Judi Jones "It is a mixture of reasons. Sometimes because they are on too-low a speed tier for what they were expecting. Sometimes it is congestion. Sometimes there are problems in the network that cause it," she says.

"Sometimes, if in fact [the consumer] is getting by and large what they have contracted for, well then, there is no fix. They might have to change their plan if they want a better service. "For the vast majority of complaints we don't know what the problem ended up being. We know what the consumer told us." Only 12 per cent of the 120,000 complaints to the TIO related to the national broadband network in 2015-16. About 7600 complaints were about slow internet speed and 6994 were about unusable internet. But then there was a sudden 34 per cent increase in complaints between July and December 2016 compared to the same period in 2015. Not all of these are related to the NBN, Jones says, but the details won't be released until the TIO's annual report is released in October.

One sore point within the industry is that retailers, not NBN Co, pay for the TIO levy for complaints about NBN services. The government-owned company is a wholesaler and only pays if there is a dispute about land access or damaged property. Blame game There is much finger pointing among industry, regulators, and telcos about who is to blame for the NBN's performance. On Friday NBN Co blamed consumers, saying 76 per cent of Australians "don't know what internet speed they are receiving" and 35 per cent were unaware they have a choice of speed when switching to the NBN. "It's about awareness," chief executive Bill Morrow told the ABC's Sabra Lane, after she said her broadband was half the speed she expected.

To resolve confusion NBN is launching a national advertising campaign. But speed tiers are not available on every NBN product and not all technologies are equal. The 188,000 regional consumers on fixed wireless are limited to a maximum of 50 megabits per second (Mbps) and 76,000 remote customers on satellite are limited to 25 Mbps. But fibre-to-the-premises customers should have their pick of speeds up to 1 gigabits per second. A spokeswoman confirmed the average speed on fibre-to-the-node lines is currently about 70 Mbps download and 30 Mbps upload. It estimates about 65 per cent of FTTN lines can get between 50 and 100 Mbps during the switch over phase, then increasing by 5 and 10 Mbps . Chief operating officer at TPG, Craig Levy, says one problem is the quality of technical work during connections and the fact NBN Co won't investigate slower FTTN speeds until switch over is complete.

"Even in the old copper world we have always been able to lodge faults with Telstra Wholesale," he told Fairfax Media. "But with NBN FTTN we are not allowed to lodge a fault unless the line performs less than 12 Mbps sync speed." This rule means NBN won't accept as a 'fault' a connection sold on a wholesale basis as 25 -100 Mbps but only doing 14 Mbps. Acting managing director of Aussie Broadband, John Reisinger, said 17 per cent of its customers are buying 100 Mbps, but their actual experience depends on the length and condition of cabling all the way from the node to their device. It recommends FTTN customers start on 25 Mbps and "once their line is activated, we can check their potential sync speed which gives us a good idea of what sort of speed their line is capable of."

Customers are also finding substantial speed improvements after changing their in-home wiring, with one customers reporting an improvement from 8 Mbps to 48 Mbps, he added.