Survey Claims 53% of UK Broadband Users Suffer Connection Woes UPDATE

A new survey of 3,975 UK people who had a contract for a home broadband ISP in December 2022 and January 2023, which was conducted by Which?, has found that 53% have experienced “connection issues” in the past year (e.g. very slow speeds, connection drop-outs etc.) and Sky Broadband were the worst offender.

Out of the biggest ISPs, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media and EE all had the lowest proportion of customers who had not experienced any issues – with just 32%, 35% and 37% of their customers, respectively, not reporting any problems. Of the major providers, BT fared best – with 49% of its customers not experiencing a performance issue in the past year.

By comparison, Hyperoptic, Shell Energy and Utility Warehouse performed better, with half or more of their customers not experiencing any performance issue in the twelve months to January 2023. However, even with these providers, at least four in ten customers still said they had experienced at least one problem.

In terms of what causes these “connection issues“, the top offender was listed as “frequent connection drop outs” (19% of respondents affected), while the second most common issue customers experienced was a “very slow speed” (17%), which was confusingly followed by 15% also saying they experienced a connection that was “slow to download or upload files“.

The fact that Sky Broadband came bottom above seems unusual. Ofcom’s own official complaints data tends to show that Sky consistently returned some of the fewest customer gripes amongst the biggest providers (here), while Shell Energy were by far and away the worst. Suffice to say that Ofcom’s data, which is based off actual complaints received, presents a very different picture from that of Which?’s more anecdotal survey above.

As for the “issues” the survey raises, it’s worth noting that these shouldn’t all be automatically conflated to mean they’re caused by the broadband ISP itself. Remote internet services can also suffer connectivity problems and so too can your home network, which could just as easily stem from a problem inside your home (e.g. local network configuration error, local network congestion, poor WiFi etc). The survey really needed to drill a bit deeper.

The survey also further confuses matters by including two options that are too easily conflated – “very slow speeds” and “connection slow to download or upload files“. Make of all this what you will, but here’s what some of the ISPs had to say in response.

A Sky spokesperson said:

“We are committed to providing the best service to our customers. We do not believe this is a representative survey – Ofcom’s quarterly complaints data shows we are consistently one of the least complained about broadband providers and, in Ofcom’s latest report, we received the fewest complaints out of all broadband providers.”

A Virgin Media spokesperson said:

“While these findings are only taken from a small sample of customers, the latest, fuller data from Ofcom shows that our customers benefit from the fastest download speeds, and customer complaints on our broadband services fell by 22% in the first quarter of this year. Only last month we were rated the ‘Best in Test’ in Umlaut’s broadband benchmarking survey, ahead of other major providers.

With demand for connectivity higher than ever, we’re investing billions of pounds each year to upgrade and improve our networks to ensure we’re providing our customers with fast and reliable broadband services they can rely on. Customers are receiving more value than ever from their telecoms services, and we continue to invest in every area of our business to ensure we continue to improve and deliver an excellent customer experience.”

An EE spokesperson said:

“Ofcom’s latest complaints report shows that we remain one of the least complained about broadband providers, with complaints remaining well below the industry average throughout recent years.

We remain committed to providing the best customer service across the industry and ensuring our customers get value for money as the UK’s best network. Our teams across the UK and Ireland already provide the most personal and local service in contact centres and retail stores across the country.

We have proudly led the way with social tariffs since 2008, with around 80% of the total market being supported on BT social tariffs. Customers who are struggling financially and are eligible for our social tariffs can move penalty-free at any point in their contract, this also includes EE and Plusnet customers.”

Richard Tang, CEO of Zen Internet, said:

“Our industry unfortunately has a poor reputation for managing customer expectations and being transparent with communications, and introducing price rises mid-contract at a time when everyone is struggling with household bills does nothing to improve this. With price rises based on a 10.1% CPI rate, and the above inflation addition of typically 3.9%, that amounts to a substantial additional burden to household budgets.

We are not immune to the inflationary forces impacting supply chains and wages, but we all recognise that customers need as fair a deal as we can offer. Zen’s response to this challenge for residential customers is the Contract Price Promise – a promise not to increase prices for the length of the contract period.

When it comes to customer service, Zen was the only provider to score four stars in all seven categories in the Which? survey – connection speed and reliability, customer service, value for money, technical support, ease/speed of contact and ease of set up. We have topped the table for eight years and are the only Which? Recommended Provider for Broadband. It’s not always easy, but we will always work to ensure we provide an industry leading service and support our customers when they need it most, rather than prioritising profit-driven price hikes that only benefit shareholders.”

UPDATE 5th July 2023

Added an extra comment.

Tom Williams, CEO and Co-Founder of Lit Fibre, said:

“The findings from the Which? report published yesterday are not surprising. Broadband providers have become complacent regarding poor customer service. Taking time to explain how customers can get the best experience ‘in home’ from their wifi setup is also top of our agenda as we know most customers need our expertise with this.

At Lit Fibre we put customer service and reliable internet first from the outset, it’s the bare minimum we think customers should be expecting. We’ve earnt our 5 stars on Trustpilot by providing customers with a consistently high quality and personal service, an average call pick-up time of 20 seconds, no bots and no mid-contract price hikes, so we know it’s possible for the industry to do so much better.”