A report released today by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has found mobile and internet plan prices have fallen in Australia. Mobile services fell by an average of 7.1% each year between 2014 and 2017 while fixed internet prices fell by an average of 4.5% during the same period.
As well as paying less for our mobile and broadband services, we're also getting more data with our plans, says the report. A quarter of all broadband services now include unlimited data. Meanwhile, data inclusions on postpaid mobile plans have risen by 6GB since 2013.
Prepaid mobile data inclusions have also risen by 2GB since 2013, although higher-priced prepaid phone plans have also risen slightly in price in the last year.
Competition benefits consumers, but complaints increase
What's the cause of all this new generosity? Increased competition, according to the ACCC. That's certainly been our experience at WhistleOut. We're seeing a rise in the popularity of small but plucky mobile service providers (MVNOs) and a boom in new broadband and particularly NBN service providers, all of which is creating a market full of discounts and data bonuses. Awesome!
But despite lower costs and better inclusions, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) has reported an increase in complaints about service. Not awesome ...
Complaints to the TIO about internet services increased by a whopping 64% over 2016-17. Of total complaints about internet services, 17% related to the NBN. Complaints about mobile services also increased by 27% and complaints about landline services increased by 30%.
The ACCC also saw a 58% increase in overall consumer complaints about the communications industry. Key causes of complaints were false representations, guarantees of acceptable quality and misleading or deceptive conduct.
Basically, it's a great time to get a discount but watch out for dodgy deals.
People are talking more on the phone
One surprising finding of the report is that people seem to be spending more time talking on the phone. In 2016-17 Australians spent a total of 82 billion minutes on the phone, as opposed to 73 billion minutes in 2014-15. That's an increase of 11% and it's across both landline and mobile. Is it possible that emojis are becoming a less acceptable means of communication?
Australians are also relying more and more on their mobiles for voice calls, with their number of mobile voice minutes rising by 14 billion between 2015 and 2017. This is not surprising when you consider that nearly all mobile plans these days include unlimited talk and text. What even is the point of a landline anymore?
Jacqui Dent
Editorial Strategist
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