Which? Claim Half of UK Households Suffered Broadband Problems in 2017

A survey of 1,709 UK telecoms customers in June to July 2017, which was conducted by Which?, found that 53% had experienced a “problem with their broadband” in the last year. Sadly customers of Virgin Media (61%), TalkTalk (60%), Sky Broadband (56%) and BT (54%) were “most likely” to suffer.

Overall the survey found that slow speeds were the biggest problem, with one in five experiencing related difficulties. Other issues highlighted included frequent connection drop-outs (17%), a fault with the wireless router (12%) or being without any connection at all for hours or days at a time (8%).

However not all of the “problems” appear related to the connectivity itself. Apparently price increases (38%) were the top complaint among customers’ of Virgin Media, while 33% of TalkTalk and 22% of BT’s customers’ said their main gripe was “very slow broadband speeds“.

Alex Neill, Which? MD of Home Products and Services, said:

“Far too many people get a poor deal from their broadband provider, with problems ranging from very slow speeds to going days without any connection at all, which just isn’t good enough.

The regulator must now deliver on its plans to improve the information that customers get about speeds when they sign up to a provider and allow them to easily exit a contract if they’re not getting what they’ve been promised. Customers who aren’t satisfied with the level of service they’re receiving should look to switch.”

As Alex hints above, Ofcom are currently consulting on various improvements to their Voluntary Code of Practice for Broadband Speeds (here) and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has similarly proposed some changes to boost market clarity (here). We expect to get a clearer picture on the latter improvements by the end of 2017, while Ofcom’s new code won’t be finalised until early 2018.

Steve Holford, Hyperoptic’s Chief Customer Officer, said:

“We are not at all surprised by the findings of this Which? survey. The underlying problem is that UK consumers are starved for choice, as the vast majority of providers are just selling the same thing. Nine out of 10 homes and businesses in the UK access their broadband through one of two routes – broadband packages from Openreach’s FTTC network and Virgin’s DOCSIS network, both of which are only ‘part fibre’ so users rarely get the advertised speeds and the performance is subject to distance. Being subjected to poor, inconsistent performance, alongside frequent price increases is naturally a problem for consumers.

The findings echo an online YouGov survey that we commissioned earlier this year to a sample of 2,000 British consumers – whereby nearly half (44%) said that they would actually feel like they have been mis-sold if they bought a ‘fibre’ service and then got a lower than advertised speed.

This is why it is so important that the ASA rules that broadband providers must make it clear whether they are selling ‘part fibre’ or ‘full fibre’ services. The difference between the two is like night and day – having this clarity in the market will ensure that consumers can make more informed choices, and hugely increase their satisfaction to boot.”

The survey is similar to the one that Which? published in April 2017 (here), albeit adding some useful information about the most common problem types. However, we should say that a faulty router isn’t strictly a problem with the “broadband” connection itself, particularly if the router is a third-party device, and slow WiFi or faulty networks or computers may also be incorrectly attributed as a broadband fault.

Unfortunately the survey wasn’t big enough to include smaller ISPs and had they done so then we suspect that the big operators would have been left looking a lot worse. On the other hand no internet connection will be perfect and even the best ones can suffer outages, such as during major power or hardware failures and as a result of damage caused by third-party contractors (cutting cables etc.).

Likewise problems with local (home) network hardware and/or software can also create issues of their own (as above, it’s not always the fault of the ISP and their broadband line). Hopefully the rising adoption of more reliable superfast and ultrafast broadband connections should help with some of these gripes.