Why One Third Of UK Users Plan To Swap ISP

This year, nearly a third of the UK’s broadband users plan to switch to a different provider, as levels of disatisfaction with Internet access speeds continue to soar, according to a survey by ISPreview.

The result may be bad, but it should come as no surprise – and probably reflects more on user expectations than on the ability of ISPs to deliver broadband services.

Unhappiness at 45 percent

ISPreview surveyed 491 people, and found that 45 percent of them were unhappy with their current Internet service provider (ISP), with most of the complaints being about broadband speeds and the quality of customer support.

Almost one third (31 percent) say they plan to switch but, if the poll is correct, the figure could be more, as another 32.5 percent said they were undecided. Around 36 percent said their broadband speed was poor, and the same figure said their ISP gave poor customer support.

“It’s deeply disappointing to see that consumer satisfaction with mainstream ISPs is still so extremely low,” remarked ISPreview’s founder, Mark Jackson. “Just 37 percent felt that their broadband speed was ‘Good’ and an even lower 35 percent gave the same opinion for ‘Customer Support’. Clearly ISPs need to work a lot harder to keep customers happy and combat churn. We predict that the situation will improve as faster and more reliable superfast broadband services slowly become widely available between now and 2015”

Jackson may be optimistic, but I suspect we have a situation where, no matter how good broadband service gets, users will always be fed up with it.

Part of the problem is the adverts which entice users to one ISP or another. Last year, Ofcom criticised ISPs for using misleading terms in broadband adverts, and users are bound to be disappointed when phrases like “up to 20Mbps” are used to inflate their expectation of speeds which cannot be delivered to everyone.

Another problem is the fact that broadband is facing two painful upgrades at the moment. Rural “not-spots” are getting proper broadband for the first time, and those with broadband are being promised with “up to 100Mbps from” a superfast version delivered over fibre, but only to some users.

BT is currently about to deliver fibre to the winners of its Race to Infinity. Meanwhile, rival Virgin Media is also offering users 100Mbps broadband over its own network.

That is obviously going to make those of us stuck on “merely” 10Mbps or less a bit green. And the country has plenty of “not-spots” of poor coverage where broadband speeds are around 1Mbps… or broadband may be non-existent.

Broadband is a political football

Successive governments haven’t helped by turning broadband into a political football. The Labour government promised universal broadband by 2012, and fast broadband for all by 2020.

Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative Culture Secretary, delayed the 2Mbps universal service till 2015, but continued to make extravagant promises on superfast broadband.

The result is that expectations are high, while the broadband industry is scrambling to provide the actual infrastructure.

At the same time, as Jackson points out, the value users get from broadband will get worse in 2011, as the effects of the Digital Economy Act feed through. By placing the responsibility for copyright policing onto the ISPs, the Act will incur extra costs which have to be passed to the consumer.

In fact, without all these factors, broadband in the UK is actually pretty good value – and certainly much better than it was a few yeasrs ago.

However, disatisfaction is a basic requirement of any consumer society. Without artificially generated “needs” people wouldn’t buy and consume as much stuff as the economy requires them to.

So ISPs should be glad that customers are so fed up with them. 2011 will be a massive year of churn, and in that churn ISPs will have great opportunities to make more money. In so doing, they will set off a new round of disatisfaction but that is the basic fact of consumer life.

The advertising of so-called ‘unlimited’ usage deals will face tighter regulation this year, as should broadband speeds. ISPs will also be required to adapt to a raft of new laws (e.g. to combat unlawful file-sharing). The result of all these changes could cause some prices to climb in 2011, which would be an unwelcome but perhaps unavoidable move on top of the current VAT hike,” concluded Jackson.