A recent survey conducted by Which found that over half of UK households have faced broadband issues in the past year.
Which is an independent consumer advice body which investigates issues for its customers and has been operating for the past 60 years. Their investigation utilized more than 1900 customers across 12 different providers throughout England, Scotland, Wales& Northern Ireland. This took place to see which broadband providers had the best and worst records in regards to Internet connectivity, Internet Speeds & Value for Money.
The Which survey found that over 20% of UK households have experienced slow broadband speeds within the past year with another 20% experiencing connection dropouts and router issues. A similarly large number of consumers had issues with their broadband prices increasing at a rate higher than they expected.
All of the Internet Service Providers involved in the Which survey had a large number of complaints including BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk & Zen Internet which combined represents 90% of UK consumers.
The worst ISP for speed issues was TalkTalk with 31% of its customers reporting issues with its broadband speeds in the last 12 months, the second worst provider was BT with 23% of its users surveyed having issues and finally Sky with 22% of its users surveyed having issues with internet speeds.
When it came to internet dropouts SSE was by far the worst performer with over 25% of its customers experiencing regular disconnects with their internet, the second worst performer was Virgin Media with its customers often facing router issues causing their service to be out for hours or even days at a time.
For price rises Virgin Media was by far the worst in terms of customer satisfaction with nearly 50% of its customers complaining about unnecessary or large price rises over the past year.
OFCOM has commented on the issue and have continued their work in protecting UK consumers from the growing issues related to broadband speeds, availability and pricing. Recently OFCOM have introduced new measures offering automatic compensation for customers affected by slow repairs, missed broadband appointments and delays in broadband installations which has gone some way to improving consumer satisfaction.
However Both Which and OFCOM have agreed that too many households are facing issues related to broadband and the providers need to improve their service to meet their customers’ expectations. They recommend that if customers are experiencing issues with their broadband connectivity, speed or price they should shop around and see what other providers are offering. A good start would be to contact all of the major providers of internet in your area including BT which is the largest provider in the UK. You can call 08700 420392 to get in touch with them. For alternative numbers you can check out FindMyNumbers including a BT customer services 0330 number among many other departments and other national & local BT service numbers.