Broadband ISPs O2 and AAISP have come top in this year’s annual Thinkbroadband Customer Service Awards 2009. O2 came top of the "Large ISPs" list with a good Customer Service and Reliability rating of 75% and 68% respectively. By comparison AAISP came top of the "Niche [Smaller] Providers" list with an impressive score of 89% and 82% respectively.

Naturally Be Broadband also came in 2nd after O2 because they share the same network and both have strong support. We were a little surprised to see PlusNet in 3rd after the performance woes of recent months but it's nice to see a BT based ISP in the top 5. Sky Broadband is no surprise with its popular bundles and the same goes for Virgin Media , though both have quite low Customer Service ratings.


By comparison Zen Internet came 2nd for the Niche Providers (not that we'd call Zen niche with 90,000+ customers), followed by the almost equally impressive IDNet and NewNet . However all of the other smaller providers, from Eclipse Internet and down, show a truly significant decline in quality.


It's interesting to contrast the significant difference in scores between the Top 5 largest and niche (smallest) ISPs, which clearing illustrates how paying more for a niche provider can indeed bring you a better quality of service. At least it can if those ISPs are among the top 4 niche providers. We will have own pick of best ISPs online in a week’s time.