The Top UK Consumer Complaints for Each Major Broadband ISP

A new survey of 3,807 consumers by Which? has revealed the top consumer complaints for each of the UK markets largest TV and broadband ISPs. Overall the study found that 70% had experienced an “issue” with their provider and customers of cable operator Virgin Media were the most likely to have had problems.

Right off the bat we should caveat that the aforementioned 70% figure needs to be taken with a pinch of salt because Which? has not balanced this against a time-scale (i.e. if we all looked back over our entire history of broadband provision then we’d probably find something to moan about).

On top of that it’s noted how 44% of all respondents had a gripe with price increases, which is likely to inflate the figures since every single one of the ISPs mentioned has a history of price rises (these tend to be done annually), which are never popular. On the other hand only 4% of Plusnet’s customers seem to have had a cause to complain about prices, even though they do raise them each year.

Meanwhile 1 in 6 respondents said they suffered “frequent internet connection drop outs” and “very slow broadband speeds.” Sadly there wasn’t enough feedback to include Vodafone and the Post Office in the results below, although admittedly they don’t offer a Pay TV service and Which? seems to have included gripes about that alongside broadband issues below (without making a clear distinction between the two).

We’ve re-ordered the results below to show providers with the most complaints at the top and their categorised gripes underneath.

The Top Complaints by Broadband and TV Provider

1. Virgin Media
58% – Price increases
14% – Frequent drop outs
10% – Very slow speeds
19% – Left without a connection
10% – Problems with equipment
9% – Problems contacting provider

2. BT
36% – Price increases
19% – Frequent drop outs
16% – Very slow speeds
7% – Left without a connection
10% – Problems with equipment
9% – Problems contacting provider

3. Sky Broadband
34% – Price increases
17% – Frequent drop outs
25% – Very slow speeds
9% – Left without a connection
11% – Problems with equipment
8% – Problems contacting provider

4. TalkTalk
20% – Price increases
23% – Frequent drop outs
25% – Very slow speeds
9% – Left without a connection
12% – Problems with equipment
9% – Problems contacting provider

5. Plusnet
4% – Price increases
17% – Frequent drop outs
13% – Very slow speeds
7% – Left without a connection
2% – Problems with equipment
24% – Problems contacting provider

6. EE
8% – Price increases
11% – Frequent drop outs
11% – Very slow speeds
8% – Left without a connection
19% – Problems with equipment
3% – Problems contacting provider

We find it interesting that Sky Broadband attracted so many gripes, not least since Ofcom’s own study of consumer broadband complaints shows that they almost consistently attracted fewer gripes than any of the other big ISPs (see below for Ofcom’s latest complaints table to the end of 2018); this tends to be the same for their Pay TV service too.

We’d be interested to see how the results balanced out if price increases were removed as a factor because BT, Sky and Virgin Media all suffer more than most from those. On this point we note that at the start of this year BT announced their future prices will increase by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and that they would not hike broadband, landline and mobile prices in 2019 (here); they didn’t mention Pay TV.

However prior to BT’s pricing announcement the operator had built up a long history of raising their prices every 9 months, which was particularly galling since for standard and superfast broadband packages they tend to be one of the more expensive options (particularly when you factor their hefty post-contract prices). On the other hand BT do include a lot of premium service features (cloud storage, access to WiFi hotspots etc.).

Ofcom’s Q4 2018 Complaints Table (Broadband)