Australia’s digital connectivity problems are not just technical—they’re structural. For too long, governments and regulators have accepted a market logic that favours infrastructure builders and service providers over the very people who rely on them. The latest findings from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) offer yet another wake-up call: Australians see internet and mobile services as essential, but they don’t feel empowered in the market that delivers them.
ACCAN’s new Consumer Sentiment Tracker gives voice to this growing discontent. It’s not a generic economic index like the Westpac or OECD confidence measures. Instead, it zooms in on how people actually feel about the communications services that shape their everyday lives—and what it reveals is deeply concerning.
Communications are essential—so why don’t we treat them that way?
Nearly 90% of Australians now consider home internet to be an essential service. Three-quarters say the same about mobile access. These are not discretionary purchases—they’re vital enablers of work, education, health, emergency support and social inclusion. Yet our regulatory frameworks still treat communications like a competitive luxury market rather than a basic utility.
This contradiction lies at the heart of Australia’s digital malaise. Despite our modern rhetoric about digital inclusion, market dynamics continue to push affordability, reliability and choice out of reach for too many.
The illusion of choice
The tracker confirms what many of us have observed for years: consumers may value price above all, but few are confident enough to act on it. Only a third compare their options, and just 10% switch providers each year. That’s not consumer empowerment—it’s entrenchment.
And this isn’t the consumer’s fault. The telco market is deliberately complex, clouded by fine print, data limits, speed tiers, bundling tricks and opaque relationships between retail service providers and network operators like NBN Co. The National Broadband Network’s wholesale-retail separation, while theoretically competition-friendly, has often left end users confused and underserved.
What good is a competitive market if people don’t feel informed or confident enough to exercise their options?
An idea whose time came too early?
Back in 2005, I gave a presentation to the Australian Association of Social Workers in Adelaide. My argument then was simple but radical for the time: telecommunications infrastructure is not just a utility—it’s a powerful social and economic enabler. I spoke of a future where broadband would underpin e-health, e-education, smart grids, and digital services that could bridge urban-rural divides and support a more equitable society. Broadband, I argued, should be treated as a national good, not merely a commercial undertaking.
Unbeknownst to me, the then opposition communications spokesperson, Stephen Conroy, was in the audience. After the session, he told me that the presentation had been an eye-opener. He invited me to his parliamentary office in Sydney to discuss the broader potential of broadband further. That conversation became the start of an ongoing collaboration. I provided strategic advice as he developed what would become Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), initially based on a visionary Fibre-to-the-Home (FttH) model.
That original FttH plan would go on to receive international acclaim. When the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development was launched in 2010—an initiative I had helped establish—Senator Conroy was invited to serve as a founding commissioner. These were years of optimism and clarity about the transformational potential of digital infrastructure.
A decade of drift
But since then, Australia has drifted. Political backflips, cost-cutting compromises, and short-term thinking diluted the original NBN vision. The pivot away from FttH left us with a fragmented mix of technologies and a market still dominated by profit-first strategies and underwhelming consumer experiences.
Today’s communications environment is not what we envisioned back in 2010. What could have been a nation-building infrastructure project became, in too many respects, a commercial patch job.
The ACCAN tracker highlights the price we’ve paid for this dilution. Despite ever-increasing dependence on broadband, consumers remain poorly informed, rarely switch providers, and feel underserved. The market, as it stands, fails the most basic public service test: does it serve people equitably?
Where policy must go next
The solution isn’t rocket science. We need:
- A formal concessional broadband policy to support low-income households,
- An obligation to serve that recognises internet access as a basic right,
- Simpler, independent comparison tools that demystify pricing and plan structures,
- And a rethink of NBN pricing and structure, with a stronger public-interest mandate.
Above all, we need to return to the principle that guided the original NBN vision: broadband infrastructure should be built for people, not just for markets.
Reclaiming the national vision
To be fair, the NBN today is in better shape than it was five years ago. Fibre upgrades are progressing, speeds are improving, and the network’s underlying capacity is catching up to global benchmarks. But better infrastructure alone is not enough.
What we still lack is the vision to use this national asset as a platform for broader public good. The social and economic benefits of universal, affordable, high-quality broadband are many times greater than its direct commercial returns. That was true in 2005—and it’s even truer today.
The question is not whether we can build the network. We have. The question is whether we can now build the policy frameworks, regulatory tools, and public mindset to ensure that broadband truly serves the nation—not just the market.
Paul Budde