Choice looked at 53 Telstra contracts and found consumers are paying up to a 92 per cent price premium to access the telco’s network, which has been hit by seven outages since February.

“There’s only so much free data Telstra can offer before it has to admit its network is failing on a fairly regular basis and its promised premium network is a thing of the past,” Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey said today.

“With outages affecting pre-and post-paid mobile voice and data services, as well as broadband internet connections, it has become clear the Telstra tax being charged to access its network is not deserved,” Godfrey said in a statement.

Choice said it analysed 280 telco products to see how much more Telstra customers were being charged when compared to equivalent or better offerings by other companies.

Of these, 53 like-for-like comparisons could be made with Telstra products with premiums on the majority of these ranging from 6 per cent to 92 per cent.

Telstra rejected Choice’s analysis, saying it was flawed and took into consideration just a handful of plans the company provided while ignoring the rest.

“In its analysis, Choice misses many of our most comparable plans and fails to consider things customers tell us are most important, such as the breadth, speeds and availability of our network and the extras we include like free and unlimited access to Australias largest Wi-Fi network, free AFL and NRL season passes, free home broadband and mobile security, Telstra TV and free Apple Music on many plans,” a Telstra spokesperson said.

“Our customers clearly recognise the value and competitiveness of our plans and this is reflected in the fact were the most popular provider for mobile and fixed services.”

-AAP