Industry complaints to the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman are up by almost a third in the first three months of the year, hitting nearly 60,000 complaints.

Vodafone recorded a 96 per cent jump in complaints to more than 14,670, following a period of mobile reception failures.

Ombudsman Simon Cohen set credit management as a key problem area for the telecommunications industry. "Credit management issues are particularly concerning because consumers most affected are often also the most vulnerable or disadvantaged," he said.

Telstra have been fined $26.5 million by a Federal Court judge for mistakenly locking broadband competitors out of Telstra exchanges.

The fine results from Telstra denying its retail competitors access to Telstra exchanges, inhibiting their ability to compete for retail customers.

Telstra is not appealing the decision and has accepted full responsibility, in light of this the Federal Court judge provided a 30 per cent discount, allowing Telstra to only have to pay $18.5m.

Whilst Telstra's competitors are happy that justice is served, they are firm in the view that until Telstra is split up between the wholesale and retail divisions, there will not be a level playing field for effective competition.

Tim Wolfenden, CEO of Make It Cheaper comments: "This is a pretty hefty fine, but goes nowhere towards creating a well regulated competitive telecoms market.

Whilst justice has clearly been served, the question will remain as to how disadvantaged business and residential customers have become by Telstra's actions.

The regulator needs to ensure that these types of practices no longer happen and will never happen again."

Allan Asher, CEO of Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), the newly formed consumer advocacy body to support Australian consumers from being ripped off by Aussie Telco's has labelled the telco's advertising as 'confusing'.

Various examples have been cited, but most of all claims of "unlimited" and "free" calls and data access have caused ACCAN the greatest concern.

Asher commented: "The industry trades on a 'confusopoly' that banks on the fact no reasonable consumer can compare different mobile or internet plans because they simply can't make sense of them."

Tim Wolfenden, CEO of MakeItCheaper.com.au adds: "There's no free dinner in life.  Mobile and broadband infrastrcuture costs money, data and calls costs money, the physical phone hardware and modems costs money - this stuff just isn't free.

It's very easy to be lured in to believing you're getting something for free, or you can use as much of it as you like without any comeback.

We always recommend to read the small print, or speak to an independent service who has read the small print on your behalf.  Bottom line is, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!"