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Almost half of Brits 'unhappy' with their broadband provider

by Sarah Griffiths on 11 January 2011, 12:05

Tags: General Business

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Almost half of Brits are ‘unhappy' with their current internet service provider (ISP) and a third of people plan on switching providers this year, according to a survey.

ISPreview's survey, which questioned 491 people in December, found that 45 percent of people are unsatisfied with their broadband provider.

The survey found that perhaps unsurprisingly, people were most irked by broadband speed and the quality of support. Almost 36 percent of respondents said their broadband speed is ‘poor' with 37 percent reportedly happy with the speed provided.

Just over a quarter of people slammed their ISP's support as ‘poor', but again the picture wasn't as bleak as it first appeared, with almost 35 percent of respondents saying any support they received was ‘good'.

ISPreview's survey discovered that around 31 percent of Brits plan on switching ISP in 2011 and considering some respondents' unhappiness with speed and support this is not surprising.

With people keen to get the best value for money from broadband providers, especially at a time when money is tight for many, the survey found that around 33 percent of people are considering changing and will no doubt take a close look at offers available, while 31 percent of Brits plan to stay put and stay loyal to their ISP.

The website said: "It's very disappointing to see that consumer satisfaction with mainstream ISPs is still so extremely low. Clearly ISPs need to work a lot harder to keep customers happy. The situation should improve, at least a bit, as faster superfast broadband services become more widely available between now and 2015."



HEXUS Forums :: 28 Comments

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…and who are they going to swap to? Another bad provider…
cameronlite
…and who are they going to swap to? Another bad provider…
This. British internet provision has been sliding down hill at a breakneck pace. They're all far too concerned with lining the pockets of their shareholders and not at all bothered about fitting network capacity to demand. Data caps and all that crap is mere patch work to service brazen greed.
I am happy enough with Sky and have been for a while now.

However, the thing that really bugs me is the speed, There is 8 mile of cable between our exchange and where I live. Annoying thing is that the exchange is actually only 2 mile away by road, its the way its been done in the first place, taken round in circles before reaching us, we have been just tagged on the end of it.

So a lot of the time now I only get 2Mb at a push, most time its is around 1.75Mb

They were laying fibre round my way before christmas, havnt seen the vans since though. This cable has nothing to do with BT or Virgin Media (3rd party contractor laying it and I spoke to them when they were outside my house) so if it is for consumers or even going live somepoint in the near future who knows.
The UK must be one of the few richer countries around the world where broadband is actually getting worse with regards to value for money than getting any better.

An example is BT and its two tier internet policy and phone providers cutting the mobile data allowances for their contracts.
Personally I have had 2 ISPs Telewest / Virgin Media and O2 and I hated VM it was at a point where I stopped calling about my issues because I would never be off the phone and they never fixed the issues anyway.

Moved to O2 about 2 years ago and have never had any issues at all. Very impressed indeed.