Ofcom: EE Gets Most Broadband And Mobile Complaints, TalkTalk Worst For Landline

EE has been named the most complained about mobile operator and broadband provider by Ofcom, while TalkTalk generated the most landline complaints and BT maintained its unwanted crown as the most-whinged about TV provider.

Ofcom says the volume of complaints increased slightly during the first quarter of 2014, with marginal rises witnessed in the landline, broadband and pay-as-you-go markets but static numbers were seen in the pay monthly an Pay TV sectors.

In previous Ofcom reports, complaints about EE, Orange and T-Mobile have been recorded separately but they have now been consolidated into one single figure to reflect increasing convergence among the operator’s brands.

Ofcom complaints

Accordingly, EE tops the mobile table with 0.12 complaints per 1,000 customers, driven primarily by complaints handling, billing and issues with changing provider. Virgin Media was also above the industry average with 0.07, but O2, Vodafone and Three were all below the average, with the latter being named as least complained about mobile operator for the first time.

EE also generated the most broadband complaints with 0.42 per 1,000, ahead of BT and TalkTalk, whose scores of 0.33 and 0.24 were also above the industry average, thanks to issues related to service faults, billing and issues with changing provider.

Sky received 0.09 complaints per 1,000 customers while Virgin Media performed the best with just 0.07. The two companies were also the least complained about pay-TV providers, with Sky scoring just 0.02, but TalkTalk recorded 0.19 and BT generated 0.25 complaints per 1,000 users – five times the industry average.

Consumer choice

Complaints were fuelled by service faults, complaints handling and billing issues, and although BT has always been the worst performing in this category, issues are significantly lower than the third quarter of 2013 following the launch of BT Sport.

TalkTalk caused the most anger among telephone users with 0.28 complaints, while BT was also above the industry average at 0.23. Sky scored 0.10 while Virgin Media finished top with just 0.07.

Ofcom says it hopes its latest report will improve transparency in the communications sector and help consumers choose their providers.

“Publishing complaints data is a key part of our work to provide useful comparative information for consumers, and drive improvements in quality of service across the communications sector,” says Claudio Pollack, Director of Ofcom’s Consumer Group. “The report highlights the performance of providers relative to each other. This is valuable information that consumers may wish to consider alongside other factors such as price and availability, for example, when choosing a provider.”

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