Complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman about Internet dumping rose 24.6 percent from 602 to 750 in the December quarter over the September, continuing a trend that has persisted for four quarters. Internet dumping complaints accounted for one in five landline billing complaints in the December quarter.
However, complaints relating to being dumped to international numbers - rather than 190 premium service numbers - fell from 2.7 percent of landline billing complaints to 2.3 percent.
A total of 15,759 complaints were received by the TIO in the quarter ending in December, a two percent increase on the September quarter. However, this was significantly down on the 20,379 complaints the ombudsman received in the 2001 December quarter.
For the entire year of 2002 the ombudsman received 53,793 complaints, excluding out-of-jurisdiction contacts and enquiries.
The ombudsman noted that there seems to be a direct link between where someone lives and how likely they were to complain. Residents of major cities were the most likely to complain, with 3.04 out of every 1,000 people complaining to the ombudsman throughout 2002. This figure steadily decreases as population centres get smaller, with very remote Australians complaining the least with only 0.68 per 1,000 people complaining to the TIO in 2002.
The ombudsman has attributed this to a lower awareness among rural Australians of their rights.
"This is not an indication that service levels in the bush are flawless," said the ombudsman, John Pinnock said in a statement. "More likely, these figures are an indication that people living in outer regional, remote and very remote areas are not as well educated about their consumer rights as people living in inner regional areas and large cities."
He added another explanation could be that city residents are more likely to have multiple telecommunications services than their rural counterparts.
Of the complaints the ombudsman received in 2002, 59.7 percent related to landline services, 26.7 percent to mobile services and 13.6 percent to Internet services.
Complaints on faults increased in the December quarter over the September quarter, with Internet faults showing the biggest proportional increase of 48.9 percent. Complaints of dropouts increased dramatically, 206 percent for dial-up services and 110 percent for cable outages.
