BT has come bottom of the eight major UK broadband providers in a customer-satisfaction survey.
In the JD Power and Associates 2007 UK Broadband Internet Service Provider Satisfaction Study, the company scored 626 points out of a possible 1,000 — 42 points behind the top-rated Tiscali, which scored 668.
Tiscali moves up from third place in 2006, scoring well on its billing process.
However, despite falling costs and rising broadband speeds, there is a continuing overall downturn in customer satisfaction this year — largely due to increasing call-waiting times.
The average satisfaction level has fallen nine points, compared with 2006, to 645, while the average call-waiting time now stands at 17 minutes.
For the first time in the survey's three-year history, customer-service complaints outnumbered service-related questions.
Behind Tiscali came Virgin Media, with a score of 660, followed by Sky (657), AOL (646), Orange (636), Pipex (634), TalkTalk (630) and, finally, BT.
The director of service industries research at JD Power, Caspar Tearle, said the high level of complaints "come as no surprise", as customers are "paying from their own pocket for these calls".
The survey — which took responses from 1,683 UK broadband customers — takes into account performance and reliability, customer service and technical support, cost, image, billing, email services and offerings and promotions.
The survey also found the average broadband subscription cost has fallen to £21.10 per month — down from £25.91 last year — and average broadband speed has risen by 40 percent to 4.87Mbps.
More than two-thirds of respondents said they receive services other than broadband from their ISP — such as home telephone, cable/satellite TV or mobile phone.
BT declined to comment on the findings.
Talkback
Maybe BT would fare better if they tried to keep their existing customers rather than just offer cheap deals to new ones. Having been wh BT Internet since t stared its dialup servce, changing to broadband when it became available. the only thing they have ever given me is an old Voyager Modem. When I asked for a home hub I have to buy it.
I supose iI should take the hint, changing my ISP.
ISP's Are all as bad as each other but somehow they seem to get away with it so easily.
It's about time people stopped being sheep and signing up with the big players just because they have heard of them and/or advertise on the telly etc. and started using google properly to find advice sites like thinkbroadband, ispreview, DSLzoneuk etc. through which they will learn that there are actually some decent providers out there and some of them even offer monthly contracts.
Definitely agree that we should all look elsewhere. Orange my current provider is very poor, download speeds are not great (can't watch YouTube content) and upload speeds are frankly pathetic (256 kbps?)
But who should we consider? there is the risk that they go under or get bought out by one of the big guys - plus some of them over stretch themselves and can't support the demand they generate.
Any advice?
You make it sound like BT has given good service in the past when in my experience the truth is far from it. We were the first people to get ADSL when it came out... that was a total farce, as was the leased line before that and regular modems before that...and dont even talk to me about telephones :(
this is why i favour cable and VoIP
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It's a good idea to check out those websites as sw3286 stated, they can allow you to see what's on offer and other peoples views on it. But do take them all with a pinch of salt some peoples view are very harsh when they really haven't cause to be others are overly idealistic.
Another one to be careful of and to look for, are small ISPs with elitist followers who flame anyone that airs problems or issues with their ISP, turning these comparison websites into a virtual X-factor/ school kid style "mines better than yours".
I have been struggling to find a new ISP that can give me everything I want (Fixed 2mb not ADSL MAX lowered to 2mb).
** Some Advice for those looking for new ISPs **
Don't believe everything that you read on adverts it's like any other business and they aim to get your money, by any means.
Read up on other users experience and reviews.
Find ex-members "I'm leaving isp x for isp y" and look at the reasons for leaving.
Finally send an email to those you think are a good choice, asking about all or some of the following
> Connection types offered (ADSL 1mb 2mb, ADSL MAX 8mb)
> Any monthly limits and charges for exceeding them
> Bandwidth throttling/ Data shaping - Does the isp employ such techniques
> Customer service average request turnaround - how quickly can you get an answer to a problem
I think all of these element are important to users today and ISP should be actively promoting information that potential customers want.
When asking an ISP information find out who is the wholesaler if there is one. Otherwise you could move from BT to an isp that uses BT wholesale ADSL for connections.
All the providers fall in a narrow band of dissatisfaction about 2/3 of maximum.
Individual scores depend on subjective problems with each so although BT is bottom it does not mean it is vastly worse than Tiscali.
At least with BT, one has the advantage of dealing directly and not through a third party who may be far down the pecking order.
Several months ago I made the BIG mistake of going to Virgin Media for everything - single source seemed a good idea. I am stuck with them still for landline and broadband, having got rid of mobile & tv within weeks and cannot wait for the 12 months to finish in order to get back to BT.
I have to admit, BT have never let me down service wise. I've only lost my service once, and BT bless them came out to my rescue the same day, and I've heard some real horror stories about other ISP's. I guess their all ok until something goes wrong.
My gripe is that my Total Broadband Option 3 only gives me free telephone calls and a wireless router if I pay out nearly £90. If I was a new customer I would get all this for free.
And I'm given a home page with advertisements exploding all over the screen if I dare move my mouse near them. One thing I suppose is that it's so offputting that I would never purchase anything they advertise.
Special deals to attract new customers are infuriating. Whatever happened to rewarding loyalty? Wow! A FREE plastic ball point pen - I must change NEOW.
AOL also suffers from the exploding adverts although they have been toned down significantly and are far less intrusive and easily avoided now.
As mentioned in my original post, Virgin is my ISP but good old AOL still supports me fully F.O.C. so there was no need to change my e-mail address and logging on is straight to AOL home.
Of all the broadband subscribers in the UK, only 1683 were surveyed. I would render a guess that not even half the broadband resellers in the UK were represented. Consequently, this is about as significant as forecasting gravitational pull on a thrown object. Sure BT's broadband is pitiful; that has never been in dispute. One need not use numbers to show it.
I too have BT, and i've never had a problem with the service, i used to be with UK Online, they were very cheap (£9/month) but on average, i didn't have internet access about 4 days of the month. everytime i rung them, they claimed there was a problem in my area 'due to BT exchange'
This smacks of sloppy journalism. The difference between the top score and the bottom score is only 4% - so either BT isn't all that bad, or the number one isn't all that good! Moreover, they have only taken a small sample and it's just a snapshot of how that small sample was feeling the day they gave their opinion. I've got no brief for BT (I use Pipex), but the real headline is that there is next no difference between the suppiers they chose to ask questions about!
...I left them five years ago but kept the mail account!
After uniformly poor experiences with a number of broadband ISPs over the years culminating in a complaint to OTELO that was upheld, I finally went back to BT. Overnight my broadband speed doubled, but the reliability hasn't got any better.
I get my phone from BT as well, so there is no excuse if anything goes wrong, they can't blame eachother. OK I know they trade as separate companies, but they've no one to blame but themselves for any faults. I no longer have to play piggy in the middle.
Yes it's more expensive and the service isn't much, if any, better, but my previous experiences were even worse! It looks as if I will be a reluctant BT customer for the foreseeable future.
After having most expensive and unlimited package with BT my experience with their service is beyond a joke. My speed never reached more than 2Mbit, when i called Off-Shore support line who could not understand what i wanted this speed issue is still not solved (just measured speed seconds ago) and now on the to BT has been testing so called revolutionary advertising technology, spying on people searching and gathering information, I finally decided to cut BT Broadband. Moving to Virgin!
Just over a year ago I changed all my communications to Virgin - phone, mobile, TV and broadband. The first 3 were a complete disaster. TV and mobile were easy to dump but I was locked in to the phone for 12 months and it was the worst of the lot. I am now back with BT.
The only fairly good bit has been broadband which sometimes [rarely] exceeds 10Mb and is usually around 7Mb +or- 1Mb and again rarely even as low as 650Kb which is abysmal. Always rock solid despite speed fluctuations and overpriced.
You might consider changing to Be which looks good. All have their down sides and you cannot try any of them out first.
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ISPs who advertise high speeds up to 24 Mb/s may be capable of delivering it at source but the true speed at destination depends entirely on distance from the exchange.
There is a broadband comparison site that lets you put in your post code and finds your exchange; then calculates the maximum speed that any ISP could deliver, even at times of low traffic. In my case, 24Mb/s came down to 5.5Mb/s and the exchange is under a mile away.
Fortunately I am on cable and the speed only drops in times of heavy use. Regularly it exceeds the advertised figure.
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To quote the building society's ad [I always hit the mute button as soon as the fat slob comes on] all the cheap deals are only for new customers.
We are unable to try any system first to find out its faults before we are locked into 12 months of potential misery.
This happened to me when it seemed a good idea to get all my communications from Virgin Media for £40. Wrong. I soon kicked out TV and mobile but could not get rid of landline until recently.
To be fair, their broadband XL at 10+Mb/s is usually brilliant [a bit slow this evening at 7.3Mb/s due to traffic] and only one loss of service for less than an hour in a whole year of 10 hours every day but it should be excellent at a hefty £37.00 per month.
Whilst in praise mode, Atlantic Electric [=Electricity] & Gas rewards loyal customers with a significant discount for second and subsequent years. A pity that so few follow their example.
BT treats its customers with the same sort of disregard that it did when it was the '"nationalised" Post Office.
The broadband service is inconsistent and unreliable even for business users and it is always difficult to get throught to anyone who can make any decisions.
I test my broadband speeds almost daily and the download speeds vary from less than 2mps to more than 6mps (upload speeds are also volatile from 200kps to 380kps). This makes VOIP calling unreliable.
The fact that one part of BT blames another for poor service (usually "Wholsale") and that they can do nothing about it is patently absurd.
The only thing that stops me switching away is that at least with all my services from one supplier, I feel in a more powerful position; we cannot get cable in the middle of the country.