Excess data charges complaints plunge despite soaring downloads on mobile networks

DISPUTES about excess data charges are down two-thirds in two years, even though consumption has more than trebled. But for parents such as this man, it’s still a battle to keep their kids’ usage in check.

Daniel Graham has the same problem many parents do; his daughter overuses data on her mobile phone. Picture: Chris Pavlich

THE number of official disputes about excess data charges for mobile phones has fallen by two-thirds in the past two years, even though the amount of data being consumed has more than trebled in that time.

The two main reasons users are much less upset are that telecommunications companies now have to give warnings as a plan limit approaches — so the user has the chance to curb consumption — and the asking price for additional data is no longer unreasonable.

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All major service providers now send text messages to alert their customers of how much they have used, which causes less upsets. Picture: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg

Since September 2013 the three largest service providers — Telstra, Optus and Vodafone — have had to provide customers with usage alerts at 50 per cent, 85 per cent and 100 per cent of the allocated monthly spend. All other providers have had to do the same since September 2014.

“We think data usage notifications have helped consumers manage their spending more easily,” said Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) spokesman Luke Sutton.

And the way excess data charges are imposed has changed for the better.

Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) Judi Jones said that previously, consumers could rack up hundreds of dollars by being slugged per megabyte of additional downloading. Now, users can add a gigabyte (GB) for about $10.

“Consumers appear to be much happier with this charging regime and don’t complain to the TIO about the additional charge,” Ms Jones said.

It’s also the case that plans offer more included data than they used to, Ms Jones added.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show in 2013-14, 66,361 terabytes (TB) of data was downloaded over phones, rising to 124,317TB in 2014-15 and 211,840TB in 2015-16. That’s a surge of 219 per cent on the levels of two years ago. On a per-phone basis, average usage has increased from about 0.6GB then to 1.8GB now.

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While there have been less complaints about over using their data, there have been more increases in slow broadband. Picture Chris Pavlich

In 2013-14, consumers made 13,249 complaints to the TIO about excess data charges on mobile services. In 2014-15, the figure fell to 8774. While the TIO is yet to make public its statistics 2015-16, News Corp Australia can reveal there were just 4610 disputes in the most recent financial year — a drop of 65 per cent from two years earlier.

ACCAN’s Mr Sutton said while this was good news, there had been a rapid increase in complaints about slow broadband data speeds.

Last year the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ran a trial monitoring program of the fixed-line internet connection of about 90 Melbourne households. It considered the trial a success and may expand it into a full-blown monitoring program of Internet Service Providers’ (ISP) speed and reliability.

An ACCC spokesman yesterday said it was in discussions with the Federal Government about a broadband monitoring scheme “which will allow everybody to see what speeds are being achieved either by ISPs or by the NBN”.

“This will allow consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions and help identify whether NBN or ISPs were responsible should speeds be slower than expected,” the spokesman said.

“However, the decisions around funding and implementing the scheme are a matter for government.”

The data dilemma

FOR many parents, the problem of a teenage child overusing phone data is one they could do without. Just ask Sydney dad Daniel Graham.

His daughter Georgia’s plan had a three gigabyte per month limit. In August she used more than 13GB, costing an additional $100; in September she consumed nearly 14GB, which meant an extra $110 had to be forked out on the postpaid service.

“For the life of me I can’t work out how this is happening but Snapchat is these kids’ life these days,” Mr Graham said.

Mr Graham was not happy with provider Vaya, saying it let the extra charges rack up at $10/GB without his approval. He wanted Vaya to simply cut-off the phone’s data access when the monthly limit was reached.

He also felt Vaya’s usage warnings were deficient, saying they fail to match Vodafone’s, which include a warning of looming additional charges.

The Grahams’ overrun charges for September have been refunded by Vaya, which said it had provided “suggestions regarding managing data usage on an ongoing basis”. These included upgrading Georgia’s service to 8GB for an extra $10 per month and, according to Mr Graham, that he needs to manually turn off the data himself.

Mr Graham said: “I haven’t changed my position that it’s unsatisfactory to change my account without making or sending a notification. Why is it acceptable for all of the carriers to provide notifications up to the plan limits for voice, SMS and data and then go quiet when a limit is exceeded and continue to charge your account for additional usage?”

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