NBN Australia Reviews 

Attempted upgrade from FTTN to FTTP. First appointment, couldn’t be completed because there was a problem up the street with the cable. Second appointment, told all done, just needed testing. Old FTTN connection no longer works. NBN tested but new connection didn’t work. Techs can’t return for 10 days. Wish I’d never begun the process. 13 days, no internet, no TV. Can’t believe it’s possible to start a job and walk away before it’s completed.

You employ people that have be found guilty of sexual assault in a court of law in Victoria in 2022 while onsite on a job and you still continue to employ them to this day in 2026 going to residential homes and businesses you should be ashamed nbn co.

NBN and Ventia management have somehow created one of the most backwards contractor systems imaginable.

Contractors are expected to:
- buy their own vans
- pay fuel, insurance, registration, tools, and maintenance
- absorb inflation
- carry operational risk
- deal with customer complaints
- handle equipment failures

…but then get managed like employees every second of the day.

After the ServiceStream-to-Ventia transition, contractor rates effectively went backwards to 2022 levels.

If a technician earned $1,000/week in 2022, they’d need around $1,180–$1,200/week in 2026 just to maintain the same purchasing power because of inflation.

Instead, contractors now:
- earn less in real terms
- do more compliance
- take more photos
- handle more audits
- complete more admin
- buy more tooling
- perform more unpaid work

All while NBN reports profitability improvements and executives continue collecting massive salaries and bonuses.

Apparently there’s always money for:
- management layers
- consultants
- auditors
- compliance departments
- executive bonuses

…but never enough to fairly pay the people physically building and maintaining the network.

The operational chaos is unbelievable:
- logging into NBN Field Toolkit 4–5 times per job
- endless Zinc chats bouncing between teams
- constant new procedures from supervisors
- warehouse trips for one missing item
- conflicting instructions from emails and management

Then comes the unpaid extras:
- replacing PCDs without payment
- covering customer wall holes
- presentation fixes
- after-hours “favours” with no ticket opened

Funny how these “favours” only ever go one way.

The defect culture is becoming ridiculous too.

Technicians are getting defected for:
- galvanised saddles when standards only say “galvanised”
- screws that ARE galvanised
- tagging methods shown in standards
- unrelated tape left in conduit
- timestamps on forms being “too close together”

At this point auditors are inspecting saddle clips like forensic scientists while field workers are trying to finish jobs safely before sunset.

Then there’s the splicer subsidy mess.

NBN announced a subsidy program.
Technicians completed extra mandatory courses.
Ventia failed to supply the splicers due to stock shortages.

Months later technicians started getting questioned about why they weren’t using equipment that was never supplied.

That perfectly sums up the entire system:
management failures somehow becoming contractor problems.

And if the splicer breaks?
No contingency plan.
No reimbursement clarity.
No backup arrangements.
Just “good luck.”

Contractors are also pressured to submit unavailability requests 10 days in advance like human beings can schedule sickness, family emergencies, or burnout.

The whole system increasingly runs on fear:
- fear of defects
- fear of losing work
- fear of calendar shutdowns
- fear of missing another random process update

Meanwhile the people actually carrying the network on their backs are treated like disposable labour.

The NBN network was built by technicians working through heatwaves, storms, asbestos risks, damaged pits, angry customers, traffic, and impossible job loads.

Not by executives sending another compliance email from an air-conditioned office.

Most technicians want quality work and high standards.

What they don’t want is:
- frozen real wages
- unpaid extras
- inconsistent auditing
- endless procedural creep
- fear-based management
- zero accountability from leadership

You can only squeeze field workers so hard before the entire system starts cracking.

And that’s exactly what’s happening now.

I work from home, and the NBN is always having issues, with constant scheduled and unscheduled outages. They've gotten so bad, it's just unbelievable.
On top of that, when they installed the NBN, we were promised fibre optic – we were building our house right when they were rolling out NBN in our street, and we paid for it separately. In reality, these dodgy people installed a slower HFC connection instead.
We couldn’t even get the internet hooked up for a whole year because the government banned other companies from competing with NBN, and all the other providers refused to help.
It’s a complete stuff-up, both by the NBN and the government, which doesn't respect liberalism or freedom of choice.

Pathetic..... Someone was supposed to come 2 weeks ago and never rocked up. 4 days later we get a notice saying that NBN had rescheduled for 2 weeks time without telling us. Wife took an afternoon off work to be home.

Two weeks later is today technician shows up and says there is another team that will contact us within the next 2 days - 2 weeks to run the cable underground. I questioned why this wasnt sorted out prior to him coming. He said the process was that someone would come a scout the install prior to the crews coming, he then said that process has been scrapped and they just come along on the day and it is what it is.

MAJOR Infrastructure issues. No Wi-Fi. Raised to complaints. No response. No action. No accountability . NO technician. No appointment. No connection for 3 months. Telecommunications Ombudsman will be contacted. NBN 03832971. Old box. Old exposed wires. No other body has the right or ability to move or touch the cables, box or wires yet NBN have not and do not action their infrastructure issues.

NBN and Telstra (together they can be called the worst) - 4 plus months of worst service....and they say I have the best service! hahahahahaha
The most common issues frustrating consumers were telcos taking no action or delayed action, service and equipment fees and no phone or internet service. Of the top 10 issues across all complaints, people reporting intermittent service or dropout issues recorded the largest spike, up 22.2 per cent.
15 Oct 2025

I have phoned both NBN & Telstra, written to Telstra daily, and still no assistance to fix or reimburse for their negligence of slow speeds, took a video of a speed test for over 3 minutes there is nothing, got to 6 mins and timed out. Yes, great service for mosqitoes!

Terrible. They have been coming and going for two weeks to pass a cable and they don't finalize the job. They came late once day, diagnosed the problem (3 people looking around and making jokes) and left because it was late. Made an appointment one week later, never showed up. Lies after lies and lies over the phone.

We are with an internet provider that uses NBN infrastructure and services. I have been impressed with the NBN staff who have come to asses and fix our internet issues, namely a gentlemen named Trevor, who helped us out today. He did not take any shortcuts and was dedicated to providing a good working connection. Thank you Trevor for your work ethic and pleasant demeanor. Nicole Greene in Alexandra Hills QLD

I received repeated updates before our fibre to the premises installation date and phone calls from the technician before and on the day. A single technician Wahaj, turned up initially, and was later joined by two others. I cannot fault the installation, and their professionalism during the whole process,they also cleaned up after.

We are now a week and a half without internet, I work from home, bought a temp modem but the connection is bad. I’ve lost over a weeks wages. No contact, no updates and no appts made. Our provider is calling us to see if it’s fixed but no progress. I’m at a loss, has anyone reported to the ombudsman? It’s not good service at all

What a joke! 24 hour outage……. Why……. When……… ‘resolution’ time changes as the old time passes……. Can’t talk to someone…… a pointless bot who understands less than an overseas call centre operator!
Completely unaccountable and on the govt gravy train!

I made an appointment via Dodo, to have Fibre to the property in Stockton NSW. The call was 'dropped' to an overseas call centre. NBN arranged an appointment and attended this Tuesday 25.11.2025. The NBN technician described why some work was required before NBN could connect fibre to the house. I accepted that advice, then advised that work won't be completed and fibre connection would no longer be an option and not proceed. That was very clear to both of us. On Thursday 27.11.2025 I received a call from NBN, which came from an offshore call centre. I first explained what occurred and it was no longer progressing, though that was not my job to update NBN about the outcome of the technician's visit. Then the caller from NBN attempted to read me the reasons for 'this call will be recorded...' I interrupted to say this is not required. I'm not progressing as I had already explained it and why. She then said, "stop talking, stop talking, stop talking", at which point I hung up. I was not surprised by the aggression and ignorance. I am disappointed that the billions $ we've pumped into the farce that was 'sold' to us and the waste of our money - in a much larger scale than the BoM abuse of public funds and no doubt not within the legislation & regulatory framework that has been around for many decades - let's see if someone is gaoled for a misuse of tens of millions of $ - all public funds. How many houses could that build? I'm very disappointed that some of that NBN money is being spent on offshore call centres where customer service is nowhere near up to a standard that is acceptable, nor deserved by the Australian public who paid dearly for this 'thing' that will never be fully accessed by many of us in our lifetime. I say to you NBN 'leaders': your decisions invite shame upon you. In the view of a great many Australians, your reputation was not good. If this is the best you can do to bring fibre to the homes of Australian's, more shame on you.

Has to be the worst Government department ever. Imagine being able to make terrible customer decisions with a complete lack of customer focus and then just blame the RSP. Had my NTD replaced with a 1 Port unit even though I had a 4 port unit previously and had used more than 1 Port The Tech had 4 port unit available (I even opened the box and held it). NBN's response, blame the RSP And now want to charge me $300. It beyond belief that you even have a customer service department with ridiculous decisions like that.

Thanks so much to Jacob, our technician in Orange NSW, who fixed a problem this morning with super efficiency and friendly service. Great work!

NBN outages are occurring weekly, sometimes more frequently. It's recommended to use mobile broadband as a backup to maintain uninterrupted internet access.

On signing up with My Mate the instructions which included my email were simple. As my phone was hard to read with broken gorilla glass would you send any info via email.
The result was all info sent to phone none to email. It was hard to get the problem across to anyone so I did some investigating myself. The email was incorrect. That's when I went to Trustpilot and read the reviews, that confirmed my concerns. The person I spoke to (Eric, not sure)at My mate was very helpful and sympathetic in closing my account and returning my money less $10 for the sim card they had sent. If My Mate had employees with similar work ethics there maybe not so many problems.

Bad connection, tried to book NBN technician but they just cancelled our appointment for couple of hours good connection. I have changed different providers but internet is crap after we update to the new NBN. As we are part of the townhouse, and using the old telephone cable inside the house, the internet through the cable is extremely weak. most of time there is no internet upstairs. and very weak internet downstairs. we need technician to check. please stop cancelling the appointment.

Constant dropouts especially when it rains. The recent visit from NBN not only didn't fix my issues but made them worse. For the next week or so after the visit, I was tearing my hair out trying to game online because of increased lag + dropouts. NBN Co is so cheapskate that instead of replacing a 10+ year old coaxial cable with a new $5 cable, they repaired it instead, causing new problems. I had to purchase a new coaxial cable myself which managed to get my internet quality back to what it was before the visit. However, I'm still having problems streaming some videos and periodically have dropouts several times per day according to my ARP latency graph.
It was originally projected that it would cost 42 billion dollars to upgrade Australia's internet infrastructure to 100% fiber optic. Only 20% of homes are now on fiber, a cost of approximately 8.4 billion dollars. NBN Co. has now received around 100 billion dollars from the tax payers, so what happened to the other 90 billion dollars plus the billions of dollars Australians have paid out of their own pockets for fiber upgrades? This is the biggest scam in Australia's history. The scammers are NBN Co., The Liberal Party and the copper wire monopoly.
Australia is ranked 81st in the world for internet speed according to Wikipedia, being outranked by a number of 3rd world countries like Kenya. I often watch live stream videos posted by Australian Youtubers which are pixelated and low quality because of these Youtuber's poor internet. This is the year 2025 and I'm being made to watch videos which are lower quality than 1980's CRT television. NBN Co is a joke and other countries make jokes about Australian internet.
When the Liberal Party announced the mixed technology plan, they were told by ordinary Australians with little technical knowledge that the NBN would be obsolete before it was even finished being built and they were right. So how could the Liberal Party and NBN Co. not realize this beforehand? Of course NBN Co. knew this but they wanted to get away with the biggest heist in Australian history.

It was time to upgrade to fibre-to-the-premises after relying on a copper internet connection. My internet provider guided me through the process, and I scheduled a time for the NBN installation. I was impressed with the clear and consistent text communication from both my provider and the NBN, which kept me well-informed throughout. To prepare, I watched several YouTube videos to understand what to expect on the day of installation.
However, there were a few disappointments. I had been led to believe that I could have some say in the placement of the internal connection box, but this turned out not to be the case. None of my suggested locations were accepted. It was clear the technician preferred the spot that was quickest and easiest for him, rather than what suited my preferences.
In the YouTube videos I had seen, the fibre cable is typically shown entering the house neatly through the wall near from the utility box. In contrast, mine runs up the wall in unsightly white electrical conduit. To reach the street pit, the technician had to dig a hole, which he only partially refilled—leaving a potential trip hazard.
Inside, a small power lead was left dangling in the air to connect to the box. No clean-up was done after the work, leaving plaster dust on the carpet. Additionally, waste materials—including plastic containers, cardboard, plastic bags, fibre offcuts, nuts, bolts, and plastic ties—were discarded improperly, ending up in the wrong bin and creating unnecessary contamination.
During the installation, the technician spent along time on his phone, which made communication difficult and, in my opinion, affected the quality and attention to detail of his work.
Having read some of the NBN installation horror stories, I do consider myself relatively fortunate—at least the connection itself is functioning properly.