Customer fury over phone and internet services spawned almost 168,000 complaints to the industry’s independent watchdog last financial year.

And while it’s up six per cent, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Judi Jones believes telcos are finally turning a corner and listening to the voices of angry consumers.

She says complaints to her office finally began to drop in the final six months of the 2017/18 financial year.

Unsurprisingly, market giant Telstra accounted for half of all complaints.

Ms Jones tells Ross Greenwood while it is “frustrating”, telcos have realised customer service is everything in a service-based industry.

“Particularly for small business, it is really frustrating and difficult to run your business without access to the phone or internet… even for residential consumers.”

She says providers have realised the levels of complaints received was “unsustainable”.

“It does appear that the measures that have been taken are starting to have some positive impact, which is great.”

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