Telstra's payphones have been dubbed "inadequate" by one politician following a report that revealed four out of ten provided inconsistent services.
A quality of service report on the working order of Telstra operated payphones was conducted by the Australian Communications Authority (ACA).
In testing payphone success the ACA found that 38 percent of payphones were only partially successful at providing calls that connect, have good sound quality and return the phonecard or unused coins.
"For consumers, this means that roughly four out of 10 payphones are likely to provide inconsistent service," the ACA said.
Furthermore, 10 percent of local calls were not connected successfully, 17 percent of national long distance calls paid for with a phonecard and 23 percent of those made with coins were not successfully connected.
"This level of performance is simply inadequate," shadow minister for communications Stephen Smith said.
"Australians, particularly those on benefits or lower incomes who are more reliant on payphones, are entitled to reasonable and equitable access to telecommunications services."
Although the ACA said it was overall "reasonably happy" with the telecommunications giant's payphone services, it said it has raised several issues with Telstra.
The study found that sound quality is often an impediment to making a successful call from a Telstra-operated payphone.
The ACA said it was aware that there was a tension between placing phone booths in quieter locations to improve sound quality and the need for them to be highly visible. However, "this finding highlights the importance of payphone location and booth design as well as use of payphone features (such as the volume control button)," the ACA said.
"Telstra is aware of some issues we've raised and is looking to address them," ACA executive manager of consumer affairs, Neill Whitehead said.
"We're always very open-minded to minded to sound quality and the cost of trying to design booths," Telstra Retail's Michael Herskope said.
However, the success rate of payphone calls, which takes into consideration sound quality, "is a measure that we find very subjective".
"It disregards the decision making process in the placement of payphones," he added.
Herskope emphasised that in making payphones accessible, visible and conveniently located they were more likely to be placed in a noisier area - such as inside a shopping centre.
"Telstra is just as likely to get criticised if they're [payphones] not in a visible spot," Herskope added.
Telstra claims to have had very little negative feedback about noise from customers.
"Customer feedback wouldn't support what these people say," according to Herskope.
Of more importance to Telstra was the ACA's objective measure of payphone functionality.
The ACA study found that 76 percent of Telstra payphones functioned sufficiently to provide reliable connections, whilst 22 percent of payphones were found to be only partially functional.
Two per cent of payphones had no dial tone.
Telstra operates almost 36,500 payphones and claims to be spending millions of dollars in maintenance, upgrades and expanding the number of public payphones.
Whilst recent reports in the UK announced British Telecom's intentions of not building anymore public payphones, Herskope said that is not the case in Australia.
"We're continuing to expand," he said.
