Ofcom publishes report on telecoms and pay-TV complaints

Charlotte Whyatt • 09 Feb 2022 News

It's issued every financial quarter and examines data from major providers like Sky, TalkTalk and BT.

Ofcom has released a new report detailing the number of complaints received by some of the biggest telecoms providers in the UK. 

The complaints included were all made between July and September 2021 and cover these provider’s landline, fixed broadband, pay-monthly mobile and pay-TV services. 

EE and Sky came joint first in terms of the fewest number of complaints about landlines, both receiving 3 complaints per 100,000 subscribers. That’s quite a bit below the industry average of 6 complaints per 100,000 subscribers. 

TalkTalk came bottom of the list with 11 complaints per 100,000 subscribers, preceded by Shell Energy with 9 and Virgin Media and Plusnet both with 8. The majority of the complaints made to TalkTalk fell under the faults, service and provisioning issues (30%). 

In first and second place for the least amount of fixed broadband complaints were EE and Sky, with 4 and 5 complaints per 100,00 subscribers respectively. BT came third with 9 complaints which is still over the industry average of 10.

At the other end of the scale came TalkTalk and Shell Energy with 17 complaints per 100,000 subscribers. The largest amount of these complaints for both providers (33% and 39%) came in the faults, service and provisioning category. 

EE and Tesco Mobile received the least amount of complaints for their pay-monthly mobile services with only 1 complaint each per 100,000 subscribers. Sky Mobile received 2 complaints per 100,000 customers which is also the industry average.

iD Mobile, who use Three’s network, received the most complaints with 4 per 100,000 subscribers. They received the highest number of complaints (27%) over their handling of submitted complaints and their process of switching customers over to other providers. 

Sky was the provider that received the least amount of complaints over their pay-TV service with just 1 complaint per 100,000 subscribers. Talk Talk came second with 2 complaints per 100,000 subscribers which is under the industry average of 3. 

BT were above the industry average receiving 6 complaints per 100,000 subscribers but Virgin Media fared the worst with 8 complaints per 100,000 subscribers. The largest amount of these complaints (30%) was again related to how they handle complaints. 

During the period that this data was collected, the amount of complaints made to Ofcom continued to fall and are now at a historically low level. 

The fixed broadband, landline and pay-TV sectors all saw a reduction in the number of complaints made while the number made to pay-mobile stayed the same.