Study Claims 3.9 Million UK Homes Owed Compensation for Broadband Issues UPDATE

A new study from comparison site Go.Compare, which used data gathered from YouGov (survey of 2,000 UK residents) and the ONS, has claimed that more than 3.9 million UK households were owed compensation for broadband issues in the last year. But take that figure with a big pinch of salt.

According to the findings, some 17% of respondents with ISPs that have signed-up to Ofcom’s existing Automatic Compensation scheme for broadband faults reported that they had “experienced a delay or missed appointment” in the last year. But more worrying is the indication that 91% of respondents do not know what the regulator’s compensation scheme is, including customers whose providers are signed up to it.

The survey claims that this means ISPs should have paid out over £114.9m in compensation to customers over the last 12 months, which is said to reflect the claim that more than 3.5 million households in the UK suffered broadband delays, with 1.4m experiencing a late start of a new service and 2.1m waiting for a repair following a loss of service.

Plus, Go.Compare believes that 1.2 million households should have been compensated a total of £57m in the last year due to missed appointments (around 5% of eligible broadband users reported to the insurance comparison site that they had experienced this issue).

The catch here is that Go.Compare’s survey is both of a fairly small sample size and one that can’t delve into the detail of each response, which is necessary to understand whether each fault or delay would have actually been eligible for such a payment. Many faults are not eligible, such as when the issue is caused by the customer’s own home network or a remote internet service (i.e. not the broadband line or ISP) – something that isn’t always clear to regular users.

Similarly, customers seeking compensation for a protracted broadband outage often forget that they need to report the outage to their ISP first (as soon as they’re able), otherwise a claim may be rejected (here) – unless you’re from a vulnerable group and eligible for priority fault repair (the eligibility rules for them are more flexible).

Suffice to say that surveys like this have a tendency to inflate the cost reality and scale of such issues. We’re currently asking for some updated figures from Ofcom and will report back later on what was actually paid out to consumers by ISPs.

UPDATE 12:47pm

Ofcom reports that, in 2022, over £60m was paid out by providers in automatic compensation, with around 1.34 million payments being made across all three service issues. The regulator reviews this every couple of years, and thus we should be getting an update in the not-too-distant future.