Mobile usage has become as ubiquitous as fixed line services and complaints about mobile services are now almost on a par with fixed line complaints. Internet service complaints are also sharply up and constitute a significant proportion of the complaints pie.

“There are now as many mobile phone handsets in Australia as there are fixed lines,” said the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, Mr John Pinnock, releasing his annual report.

“The TIO’s complaint statistics for the 2005 financial year generally reflect the increase in the number of mobile phones. However, some of the increase in mobile complaints has been because of higher than expected complaints about mobile handset faults.”

The TIO investigated 78,915 complaints in 2005, 31.9% more than the 59,850 complaints investigated in the 2004 financial year.

Each complaint to the TIO may generate more than one issue. For example, a person complaining about billing may also lodge a complaint about a fault. The TIO logged 100,825 complaint issues in the 2005 financial year.

44.2% of complaint issues were about landline services, 39.9% about mobile services, and 15.9% about internet services.

Mobile services complaint issues rose by 87.5% from 21,465 in 2004 to 40,254 this year. The leading categories of complaint were billing, contracts and faults. Faults complaints doubled from 3,692 to 7,379.

Landline services complaint issues rose by 23.2%, from 36,167 to 44,559. The leading categories of complaint were billing, customer service and credit control.

Internet service complaint issues rose by 54.1%, from 10,388 to 16,012. The leading categories were billing, customer service and faults.