UK regulator issues mild rebuke to indifferent operators
The quality of service offered by Britain’s communications service providers has seen no improvement at all since the start of the year, according to UK regulator Ofcom. Britain’s Office of Communications has published the latest complaints data for the second quarter, from April to June, of 2022, which shows that complaints about mobile and pay TV services were around the same as the previous quarter and there was actually an increase in the number of complaints about broadband.
The biggest criticism in all categories was about the way that complaints were handled, said Ofcom. Among the mobile network operators the most complained about pay monthly mobile brands were BT Mobile and Virgin Mobile. In both the broadband and landline categories, racking up 31 complaints per 100,000 subscribers Shell Energy was easily the most complained about comms provider with nearly twice the rate of complaints generated by Virgin Media. However Virgin Media’s actual volume of complaints was higher. Vodafone, TalkTalk and Plusnet also performed worse than the industry average.
Virgin Media easily won the worst Pay TV provider category, racking up ten times as many complaints as Sky.
Though the overall complaint numbers are stable, these figures show some providers need to step up, according to Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s Group Director for Networks and Communications. “With household budgets being squeezed during the cost-of-living crisis, people will be taking a closer look at their provider to make sure they’re still the right one for them,” said Fossell.