Telstra's hold on the telecommunications market is slowly eroding as competition gives consumers more choice, especially over mobile phone carriers.

According to a recent Ray Morgan survey, Telstra was the only mobile phone carrier to see customer satisfaction fall. Telstra also scored a below average 60.3 per cent for customer satisfaction based on a comparison of new mobile subscriptions between carriers.

In the study Virgin Mobile and Vodafone scored the best for customer service, prompting Telstra to publicly declare things were going to change.

‘Improving customer service is one of our top priorities and we want to be rated the best in customer satisfaction compared to the rest of industry by the end of FY2012.’ a spokesperson told Exchange Daily.

Worse still the decrease in customer satisfaction coincides with recent reports of overall declining customer revenue and breaches of the Trades Practices Act by preventing competition at several mobile phone exchanges.

Luckily there is a lot of scope for change and Telstra still has a very strong competitive edge, especially with its super-fast Next G network, which it claims to be Australia's fastest national mobile broadband network.

Furthermore, Telstra offers the best mobile phone coverage in Australia, which is yet to be matched by any of the other mobile phone providers. Customers who require a reliable mobile phone signal, especially those in outback Australia, are likely to consider Telstra mobile phones and plans on the Next G network.

If Telstra is serious about improving its record on customer service, then competition between mobile carriers is set to intensify! Stay tuned for more Telstra mobile news!