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Over the course of 2020, two Australian telcos saw their complaints per 10,000 services in operation (SIO) increase while the others fell, according to the latest Communications Alliance Complaints in Context report covering October to December 2020. The first of the telcos, Southern Phone, has retained its crown as the most complained about telco in the nation, even though it has moved from 27.6 complaints to 23.7 in the past quarter, which still sits well above the 17.7 it recorded the same time last year. Similarly, Telstra has improved from 11.1 complaints per 10,000 SIOs to 9.8 to the end of December, but that was above the 7.5 recorded for the same quarter in 2019. For the rest of the industry, the trend has been a shift downwards, even if complaints spiked in previous quarters. "The decrease in complaint rates for most participants reflects the hard work by all of industry to improve customer service," Comms Alliance CEO John Stanton said. "When considering data points such as … [Read more...] about Telstra and Southern Phone saw complaints rise over 2020

Telstra reported on Thursday it had a challenging end to the calendar year of 2020, as the company saw double-digit drops in revenue and earnings before interest, income tax expense, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) and, consequently, it has revised its guidance downwards. For the half year to December 31, the company saw revenue fall 10% to AU$12 billion, while EBITDA dropped 14.7% to AU$4 billion, and EBIT took a 20% hit to decline to AU$1.64 billion. Thanks to a substantially lower level of income tax, down 60% to AU$209 million, net profit fell only 2.2% to AU$1.13 billion. The reasons for the lower revenue was pinned on lower hardware sales, while the now regular blame on NBN headwinds and a lack of international roaming revenue due to the pandemic drove the lower profitability. The company said handset and tablet sales were down by 450,000 units, which translated to a 29% decline to AU$1.24 billion for the quarter as a line item. COVID-19 slowed sales during the … [Read more...] about Telstra revenue and earnings decimated on lower roaming data and hardware sales

Telstra has asked Australia's pending national critical infrastructure laws to avoid creating duplicate or conflicting requirements for the telecommunications sector, highlighting that existing regimes it is bound by already "work well". The Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 aims to implement "an enhanced framework to uplift the security and resilience of Australia's critical infrastructure". Among other things, the Bill introduces a positive security obligation (PSO) for critical infrastructure entities, along with sector-specific requirements and mandatory reporting requirements to the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD). Telecommunications is one such sector that would be deemed as " systems of national significance " under the Bill, which would update the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (SOCI Act). As a telecommunications provider, Telstra is covered by the Telecommunications Sector Security Reforms (TSSR) regime. "The … [Read more...] about Telstra recommends amending existing telco Acts instead of creating duplication

Telstra has said it is now blocking approximately 6.5 million suspected scam calls a month, at times up to 500,000 a day, thanks to automating the former manual process that sat at around 1 million monthly scam calls. The system that Telstra built in-house forms the third leg of its Cleaner Pipes program. In May, the company kicked off with DNS filtering to fight against botnets, trojans, and other types of malware, and extended to blocking phishing text messages purporting to be from myGov or Centrelink before they hit the phones of customers. "Scam calls are not only annoying, they also have a real financial impact on Australians and are estimated to have cost ordinary Australians nearly AU$48 million last year," CEO Andy Penn wrote in a blog post . "If you think you are receiving a scam call, our simple advice is: Hang up." Penn said the company would only call customers between 9am to 8pm on weekdays, and 10am to 3pm on Saturdays, and never on a Sunday. "The … [Read more...] about Automating scam call blocking sees Telstra prevent up to 500,000 calls a day

Telstra InfraCo's dark fibre optic network is now available for use across six Australian state capitals. "Spanning across our nation is 250,000km of untapped potential that we can now begin to offer our customers," Telstra InfraCo fibre executive Kathryn Jones said. "With our massive fibre footprint underpinning our new offering, it opens up a wealth of capabilities and control." Jones said over 250 pre-defined paths across six state capitals that are connected to 68 metro data centres, 78 NBN points of interconnect, and two cable landing stations are now available. She said opening up the telco's fixed network to customers is a "profound step in unlocking untapped value" in Telstra's network assets. Dark fibre is the first product to be launched by the infrastructure arm of Telstra since its launch in 2018. Jones said it is the first of a series of offerings Telstra InfraCo is planning on bringing to the market. Towards the end of last year, Telstra announced that by the … [Read more...] about Telstra InfraCo opens up dark fibre network

The company responsible for the National Broadband Network (NBN) has dispensed with its previous earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) games as it gears up to report positive earnings at year end after a solid first half. For the six months to the end of 2020, NBN reported a 25% increase in revenue to AU$2.26 billion, which it said was thanks to 660,000 premises joining the network and increased demand for higher speed plans. Revenue from business customers was also up by a quarter compared to this time last year, and was reported as AU$397 million. Average revenue per residential user remained flat over the past year at AU$45 each month. On the EBITDA front, the company reported AU$424 million, a AU$1.1 billion turnaround on the AU$663 million EBITDA loss reported last year, and included AU$809 billion in payments to Telstra and Optus as users switch onto the government-owned network. Those payments had previously been excluded as NBN paraded an … [Read more...] about NBN aims up at first positive full-year EBITDA after 25% revenue bump