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Chronicle Live
National
Aaron Morris

UK's 'worst' internet, TV and mobile suppliers by Ofcom complaints - is yours on the list?

Communications regulator Ofcom has revealed fresh stats in terms of customer complaints between October and December last year - on a number of UK services including broadband, TV and mobile phones.

And while you may expect that the premium big-name brands outperform budget suppliers in keeping more customers content, sometimes this is not the case.

According to the strenuous research, Shell Energy came up trumps in terms of internet supply, while Virgin Media had the most complaints per 100,000 in terms of television. For mobile phone service, BT Mobile were found to be the provider with the most discontent among customers in the select timeframe.

Read more: Millions of UK internet users warned as major providers set to hike prices in April

Writing about the research, Ofcom detailed: "To better understand the reasons for dissatisfaction among residential customers in our sectors, we compile that data and determine the number of complaints received by provider and by service. To compare the performance of providers, on a quarterly basis we publish the number of complaints that we received about them relative to the size of their customer bases (i.e. per 100,000 customers)."

They added: "Shell Energy remained the most complained-about landline and broadband provider, with an increase in landline complaints from last quarter. Customer complaints were mainly driven by their experience with faults, service and provisioning."

On television, they went on: "Virgin Media and BT attracted the most complaints about pay-TV. The main reason customers complained to Ofcom about Virgin Media was due to complaints handling while experiences of faults, service and provisioning was the main driver for BT.

"Sky received the fewest pay-TV complaints."

Finally, on mobile phone service, they said: "BT Mobile, Virgin Mobile and O2 were the most complained-about mobile operators, with customers primarily complaining about how their complaint had been handled (BT Mobile, Virgin Mobile), their experience with faults, service and provisioning (O2), as well as issues changing provider (BT Mobile).

"Sky Mobile, EE, Tesco Mobile and Three attracted the fewest complaints in the mobile sector."

Here are the results of Ofcom's findings on internet, TV and mobile in full.

Internet complaints per 100,000 -

  • Sky - 5
  • EE - 7
  • Plusnet - 10
  • NOW Broadband - 10
  • BT - 10
  • Virgin Media - 14
  • TalkTalk - 18
  • Vodafone - 19
  • Shell Energy - 27

Mobile complaints per 100,000 -

  • Sky Mobile - 1
  • EE - 2
  • Tesco Mobile - 2
  • Three - 2
  • Vodafone - 2
  • iD Mobile - 2
  • O2 - 3
  • Virgin Mobile - 3
  • BT Mobile 4

Paid TV complaints per 100,000 -

  • Sky - 1
  • TalkTalk - 3
  • BT - 7
  • Virgin Media - 8

Do you agree with the findings from Ofcom? Let us know in the comments.

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