Australian telcos received over a million complaints for 2022-23, representing an increase of 2.3% over 2021-22, according to figures from the ACMA.

The ACMA report is in stark contrast to figures recently released by the Telecomunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO), which showed a drop in complaints of 16.5%.

The number of complaints that were escalated to the TIO reduced to around 64,000 from almost 78,000 the previous financial year.

However, telcos are now quicker at resolving problems. It takes them 5.2 days to resolve complaints, faster than 7.4 from 2021-22.

The number of complaints per 10,000 services remained steady at 58 as the number of telco services increased at the same rate over the period.

Commenting on the data, ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said telcos must remain focused bringing down customer complaints.

O’Loughlin said the million complaints is “an indicator that consumers expect more of their telco providers.”

“People rely on their telecommunications services to access work, education, health, government services and keep connected with their family and social lives. High complaint numbers are an indication that consumers are still experiencing too many issues with their services.”

O’Loughlin also lamented that telcos averaging more than eight days to resolve complaints “is not good enough.”

The data covers the period of the September 2022 Optus customer data breach. While the ACMA does not report complaint numbers at an individual provider level, Optus has previously indicated publicly that it received a large number of complaints during that period.