Ofcom List the Naughtiest UK Mobile, Phone and Broadband ISPs – Q4 2015

The telecoms regulator has released their latest complaints report to the end of 2015, which reveals what mobile, TV, phone and broadband providers in the United Kingdom attracted the most consumer complaints. EE topped the naughty list for broadband, while TalkTalk dominated for fixed line phone gripes.

Ofcom receives nearly 300 telecoms complaints a day, although their report only focuses on the market’s biggest providers (i.e. those with an overall market share of at least 1.5%) because smaller ones don’t produce enough data. The data reflects gripes that have been made directly to Ofcom rather than the ISP (i.e. users that have not been able to resolve their complaint via the ISP).

The results are reflected as a proportion of residential subscribers (i.e. the total number of quarterly complaints per 100,000 customers), which makes it easier to compare providers in a market where the big operators can vary significantly in size.

The Results for Q4 2015

Overall the total volume of complaints decreased from Q3 2015, with all sectors generating less relative complaints except for the pay monthly mobile sector, which generated levels higher than those in Q3 2015. Sadly fixed line broadband and fixed line (i.e. phone line rental) services continue to generate the highest number of complaints.

Firstly we’ll take a look at the performance of the biggest fixed line broadband ISPs, which found that EE remains top of the worst and both TalkTalk and Plusnet aren’t far behind. EE’s main complaint drivers were related to faults, service and provision issues (i.e. issues with billing, pricing, and charges; and complaints handling).

Meanwhile TalkTalk did the worst when it came to the fixed line rental / phone products, albeit only because EE and Plusnet suddenly saw fewer gripes before Christmas.

The results for Mobile (pay monthly) and Pay TV providers can be found below, which in the first instance spells bad news for Vodafone (Ofcom are currently probing some of their consumer complaints).

Ofcom’s Complaints Report Q4 2015
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/../complaints/Q4-2015/