Ten percent of our survey respondents changed providers in the past year. A constant theme was that they didn’t know whether the new ISP would be better – and they could only find out once they’d changed, which often involved being locked into a one-year contract.

Some had positive reasons for switching: finding a better plan (36%) or a cheaper plan (31%), or upgrading from dial-up to broadband (27%).

Others had negative reasons: poor customer service/helpdesk (30%), poor or unreliable access (26%), or billing problems (9%).

The experience

Over 25 percent of those who switched had set-up issues and delays with connection to the new provider, as well as billing problems with the old provider.

Member comments

• “If it was less hassle to change I would. Are any other providers any better?”
• “TelstraClear persuaded me to switch from Xtra, promising better service, higher speeds and lower cost, but there is sod all to pick between them on any of those measures.”
• “Previously with Xtra and changed to TelstraClear. Unbelievable difference in performance. Telstra blows Telecom out of the water.”

Find the best ISP for you

Find the best ISP and broadband plan for your needs by checking our broadband plan selector. Compare the prices, claimed speeds and details of over 300 plans including ADSL, cable, wireless, satellite, and mobile broadband.

Settling disputes

If you have an issue with your ISP and haven’t been able to resolve it with the company, you could take it to the Telecommunications Dispute Resolution service (TDR).

TDR can’t consider complaints about companies that are not part of the scheme (but Telecom, TelstraClear and Vodafone are members). It also doesn’t deal with issues about mobile coverage.