Half the homes we hear from are on fibre now. Their problems haven't gone away.

Every year we get thousands of questions about home internet from people across Sydney. We’ve kept every one since 2015. This year we went back through all of them and counted.

The result is the largest independent picture we know of of what actually goes wrong with home internet in Australia, from the people who get called when it does. Not a provider’s fault statistics, and not NBN’s. What households needed, year by year, for eleven years.

The short version

The short version

• 54%Fibre is the new normal. In 2017, 49% of the customers who told us their connection type were on ADSL. In 2024 to 2026, 54% are on fibre to the premises.
• 43%Someone has usually been already. 43% of people with a fault had already had a technician out before they reached us: 296 of 681.
• 226"It's your wiring." 226 people told us they had been told the problem was their own internal wiring.
• 19%One in five didn't need a visit. Since 2024, 19% of real enquiries were sorted with advice. The most common fix was a small part, or ringing the right company.
• 24%Faults are taking over. Fault finding has nearly doubled its share in a decade, from 13% to 24% of enquiries. Phone line repair went from 27% to 3%.

4,127 real enquiries from May 2015 to September 2026, out of 5,209 conversations. Every share on this page is of the period or year beside it. Method and limits are set out at the bottom.

Eleven years in one slider

Pick a year. The top bar is what people were connected with. The bottom bar is what they needed. Watch the copper drain out of the top bar and faults and wifi grow in the bottom one.

What people were on 2017: 109 told us their type2018: 129 told us their type2019: 192 told us their type2020: 409 told us their type2021: 290 told us their type2022: 211 told us their type2023: 158 told us their type2024: 145 told us their type2025: 97 told us their type2026: 103 told us their type

ADSL 49%43%14%6%1%0%0%1%1%0%

FTTN 14%12%9%11%9%12%11%6%8%4%

FTTC 1%3%24%25%26%24%13%17%14%9%

HFC 17%19%29%24%21%14%25%14%12%24%

FTTB 0%1%1%1%4%4%4%6%6%7%

FTTP 18%20%22%30%33%40%44%54%54%54%

ADSL, before the NBN

49%43%14%6%1%0%0%1%1%0%

Fibre to the node

14%12%9%11%9%12%11%6%8%4%

Fibre to the curb

1%3%24%25%26%24%13%17%14%9%

HFC

17%19%29%24%21%14%25%14%12%24%

Fibre to the building

0%1%1%1%4%4%4%6%6%7%

Fibre to the premises

18%20%22%30%33%40%44%54%54%54%

What they needed 2017: 524 real enquiries2018: 441 real enquiries2019: 396 real enquiries2020: 680 real enquiries2021: 623 real enquiries2022: 371 real enquiries2023: 284 real enquiries2024: 293 real enquiries2025: 163 real enquiries2026: 174 real enquiries

Faults 15%16%7%11%19%19%23%24%21%28%

Advice only 7%5%13%18%19%12%15%19%19%18%

Cabling and installs 47%51%48%48%45%47%46%30%46%42%

Wifi 1%1%2%3%5%5%7%9%7%11%

Phone line 30%24%26%15%10%6%8%4%2%1%

Lift phones 0%2%5%5%3%11%2%14%5%0%

Faults

15%16%7%11%19%19%23%24%21%28%

Advice only

7%5%13%18%19%12%15%19%19%18%

Cabling and installs

47%51%48%48%45%47%46%30%46%42%

Wifi

1%1%2%3%5%5%7%9%7%11%

Phone line

30%24%26%15%10%6%8%4%2%1%

Lift phones

0%2%5%5%3%11%2%14%5%0%

Pick a year

2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026

2017 Half our customers are still on ADSL, and most of the work is phone lines and new lead-ins.

2018 NBN arrives street by street. Lead-in conduit is the biggest job we do.

2019 ADSL is almost gone. Fibre to the curb and HFC take its place.

2020 Everyone is home. Wifi and fault enquiries start to climb.

2021 A third of customers are on fibre to the premises.

2022 Lift phones go quiet on one network, and building managers start asking.

2023 Fibre to the premises is now the biggest single connection type we see.

2024 The 3G shutdown. Lift emergency phones are suddenly a real share of the work.

2025 More than half on fibre. Faults, wifi and cabling are most of what people need.

2026 Today: one enquiry in four is a fault, and one in five needs advice, not a visit.

The copper years are over

In 2017, almost half the people who told us their connection type were on ADSL. By 2019 that was 14%. By 2021 it was 1%. The phone line in the wall, which used to be most of our work, went with it: phone line repairs were 27% of what people needed from us in 2015 to 2019, and 3% now.

Fibre to the premises went the other way: 18% in 2017, 33% in 2021, 54% in 2024 to 2026. Fibre to the curb rose quickly and then fell back as streets were upgraded to fibre. Fibre to the node is down to 6%.

That matters, because fibre breaks in different places. On copper, the fault was usually somewhere along an old pair: a bridge tap, a corroded joint, a socket nobody used in thirty years. On fibre, it’s the box on the wall, the port the router plugs into, the cable from the street that someone dug through, or a box installed in a spot that left the router two rooms away. We found a cut or dug-through fibre lead-in in 41 cases.

What people were connected with, of those who told us their connection type

Connection type	2017 (109)	2019 (192)	2021 (290)	2023 (158)	2024 to 2026 (345)
ADSL, before the NBN	49%	14%	1%	0%	1%
Fibre to the node	14%	9%	9%	11%	6%
Fibre to the curb	1%	24%	26%	13%	14%
HFC	17%	29%	21%	25%	17%
Fibre to the building	0%	1%	4%	4%	6%
Fibre to the premises	18%	22%	33%	44%	54%

What people need from us now

Fault finding is now the biggest single thing people need: one enquiry in four since 2024, up from about one in eight before 2020. Wifi went from almost nothing to level with lead-in conduit. And the most common add-on to any job is a cable: when someone asks about wifi, a box in the wrong place or a fault, the second thing they need is usually a data cable run to the room that matters.

What people needed	Share, 2024 to 2026	Earlier
Fault finding	24%	13% in 2015 to 2019, 17% in 2020 to 2023
Advice only, no job	19%	8% in 2015 to 2019, 17% in 2020 to 2023
Data cabling	10%	6% in 2015 to 2019, 10% in 2020 to 2023
Lead-in conduit	9%	26% in 2015 to 2019, 14% in 2020 to 2023
Wifi	9%	1% in 2015 to 2019, 4% in 2020 to 2023
Lift emergency phone	8%	2% in 2015 to 2019, 5% in 2020 to 2023
NBN box relocation	6%	3% in 2015 to 2019, 10% in 2020 to 2023
MDF jumpering	5%	7% in 2015 to 2019, 4% in 2020 to 2023
FTTP upgrade cabling	5%	2% in 2015 to 2019, 4% in 2020 to 2023
Phone line	3%	27% in 2015 to 2019, 11% in 2020 to 2023
Other jobs	0%	commercial fit-outs, TV antennas and new build pre-wires

Someone has usually been already

43% of the people who came to us with a fault had already had a technician out. Since 2024 it’s 62 of 153. Most of them were told one of two things: there’s nothing wrong on the network, or the problem is in your home’s wiring. 226 people told us they’d been told it was their own wiring.

Sometimes it was. Often it wasn’t. When we looked at 324 fault jobs we’d filmed, the fault was outside the customer’s cabling in 56% of them. The people who get stuck are the ones whose fault comes and goes, because a line test run at the wrong moment passes.

One in five didn’t need us at all

Since 2024, nearly one real enquiry in five ended with advice instead of a booking. That’s not lost work. It’s the most useful thing we do, and it’s the reason this page exists. These are the answers we gave most often from 2022 on:

What fixed it without a visit, 2022 to 2026: 630 enquiries where the advice was recorded; one enquiry can count under more than one answer

What fixed it	Times
A small part: coupler, patch lead, socket, isolator	98
Ring your provider, it is theirs to fix	94
The right mesh kit, placed properly	84
Check your connection type on NBN's site	61
Send photos first	59
5G or fixed wireless instead	55
Register a granny flat address with the council	53
Plug the computer straight into the box	36
Escalate to the ombudsman	20

The single most common fix was a part that costs less than a takeaway coffee. A loose coupler, a patch lead that had been stood on, an old phone socket still wired into the line. Check those first.

The work nobody writes about: lift emergency phones

172 enquiries over the years, 48 of them since 2024, and three in four from businesses and strata. Lift emergency phones ran on the mobile network, and when a network switched off 3G, the phone in the lift car went dead. Building managers found out when the lift company’s inspection failed. It’s 8% of what people needed from us since 2024, more than box moves or MDF jumpering, and almost nobody writes about it.

If your internet is playing up right now

1. 1

   Find out what you're connected with.

   Fibre, curb, node or HFC changes everything after this. Check your address on the rollout checker.

2. 2

   Plug one computer straight into the router with a cable.

   If that's fine, the problem is your wifi, not your internet.

3. 3

   Check the small stuff.

   Every lead, every coupler, any old phone socket on the line.

4. 4

   Write down when it drops.

   Date, time, what you were doing. A pattern is evidence.

5. 5

   Ring your provider with that list.

   If they send someone and it's still not fixed, that's when an independent technician earns their fee.

Step one is the rollout checker; step five, when it comes to it, is how we find faults.

Use these figures

Journalists, researchers and anyone writing about home internet are welcome to use the figures on this page. Please credit “Secure A Com, Sydney Home Internet Fault Report 2026” and link to this page. The aggregated data is free to download under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (opens in a new tab).

Download the data (CSV)

Questions about the data? Get in touch.

How we made this report

1. 1

   Every enquiry, since 2015.

   Every call to our business line has been recorded since May 2015. That's 5,209 conversations up to the end of September 2026.

2. 2

   Transcribed, then stripped of names.

   Each recording was transcribed, and every name, phone number and address removed before anything else read it.

3. 3

   Read one at a time.

   An AI model read each conversation on its own and filled in the same fixed form: what the person needed, their connection type, whether someone had already been out, who they'd been told was at fault, and what advice ended it.

4. 4

   Counted in code.

   Every figure on this page was computed by a script from that table. None is an impression. Booking changes, wrong numbers and sales calls were taken out, leaving 4,127 real enquiries.

5. 5

   Nothing personal published.

   Only totals leave our records. Any group smaller than 10 is not shown.

What this data is, and what it isn’t

It’s the people who contacted a private telecommunications technician in Sydney. That’s not the average household: people who come to us have usually already tried their provider, so faults and hard cases are over-represented. Most of our work is in Sydney, and about one enquiry in eight came from further away. Connection type is only counted where the person knew it. 2015 and 2016 are partial years, so we only split from 2017. And this report counts what people needed and were told. Where faults were proven on site, that’s the 324-job study.

Sydney Home Internet Fault Report, 2026 edition: 4,127 real enquiries out of 5,209 conversations, 26 May 2015 to 30 September 2026, counted on 28 October 2026. Shares are whole per cents of the period or year beside them and are never pooled across periods. Any group smaller than 10 is shown as "fewer than 10". Data: nbn-fault-report-2026.csv, CC BY 4.0.