Ofcom has confirmed today that it is launching an official investigation into UK ISP Bulldog (Cable & Wireless), which will focus specifically on the issues of billing, customer support and the providers handling of complaints.

The media-to-telecoms regulator said that it would also investigate whether Bulldog had failed to abide by rules that require "communications providers to establish and maintain complaints-handling procedures that conform to a code of practice".

Bulldog has previously admitted that gaps existed in its customer service and it had experienced problems with its billing systems which resulted in erroneous bills being generated.

To be fair, the greatest annoyance (new subscribers stuck without a connection) was largely down to BT's problems with LLU provisioning. BT denies most of this, although even some of our friends have been caught up in the problems and highlight BT as being the major delay factor.

However, Bulldog should burden most of the responsibility for being unable to communicate these problems to customers and failing to correct their billing. Similarly the lack of customer support is seen as unforgivable by those forced to go months without a connection.

To date none of the worst effected customers have been offered any compensation for the damage done.