More than half of broadband customers in the UK continue to experience problems with their service, a survey has found, despite providers raising prices by more than the rate of inflation.
The findings are part of the latest “broadband satisfaction survey” from consumer group Which?, which found that 53% of those asked had connection issues in the 12 months to January 2022, with the most common complaint being connections dropping out and “very” slow browsing speeds.
All providers had “persistent” issues, with only narrow margins between the best and worst performing for customer experience.
Which? also found the scale of the issues added “insult to injury”, given many customers saw their bills increase by more than 14% after providers decided to raise prices by more than the rate of inflation.
Providers put prices up by an average of 14% in January, while that month’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Retail Price Index (RPI), which were 10.5% and 13.4% respectively.
Of the biggest providers in the UK, Sky (the owner of Sky News), Virgin Media and EE had the lowest proportion of customers who had not experienced any issues, at 32%, 35% and 37%.
At the other end of the scale was BT, with 49% of its customers not reporting any problems.
More than half of customers with Shell Energy, Hyperoptic and Utility Warehouse did not report any issues in the last 12 months.
The most common problem reported was connection dropouts, which were experienced by 19% of those who had issues, while 17% suffered slow speeds and 15% complained about poor upload and download rates.
Some 14% said they had no connection for at least 30 minutes, while 12% experienced slow or disrupted music streaming.
Eight percent of those who reported issues said they were left without internet for more than a day.
Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: “A reliable connection is essential to modern life. Earlier this year, many broadband consumers were hit with mid-contract price hikes of more than 14% – meaning that it’s more important than ever that their provider offers a reliable connection and good customer service.
“It’s completely unacceptable that customers who have faced these eye-watering increases are also experiencing so many problems with their connection. Broadband firms need to work harder to resolve these issues and offer a better service.
“While some customers are able to switch away to better service and prices, many are trapped in contracts where they either have to accept above inflation price hikes in the spring or pay exorbitant exit fees to leave the contract early.”
A Sky spokeswoman said: “We are committed to providing the best service to our customers.
“We do not believe this is a representative survey – Ofcom’s quarterly complaints data shows we are consistently one of the least complained about broadband providers and, in Ofcom’s latest report, we received the fewest complaints out of all broadband providers.”
A Virgin Media spokesman said: “While these findings are only taken from a small sample of customers, the latest, fuller data from Ofcom shows that our customers benefit from the fastest download speeds, and customer complaints on our broadband services fell by 22% in the first quarter of this year.”
EE said: “Ofcom’s latest complaints report shows that we remain one of the least complained about broadband providers, with complaints remaining well below the industry average throughout recent years.
“We have proudly led the way with social tariffs since 2008, with around 80% of the total market being supported on BT social tariffs.
“Customers who are struggling financially and are eligible for our social tariffs can move penalty-free at any point in their contract, this also includes EE and Plusnet customers. “