Report: Choosing the best broadband, mobile and landline provider
This is Ofcom’s fifth annual report on how service levels compare across the telecoms industry. We publish it to help people make informed decisions about which provider is best for them, as part of our work to ensure fairness for customers.
By shining a light on the performance of the UK’s main mobile, broadband and home phone providers, this report allows people to look beyond the price and see what level of service they can expect from different providers. It also acts as an incentive for providers to improve their customer service.
This report covers customers’ experiences in 2020 and therefore includes the period covered by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. It has been a challenging year, and some customers experienced lower levels of service quality at times. This can be explained by the unique situation, but in cases where service levels worsened, we expect them to return to at least 2019 levels, or better, now that processes are established for operating in the pandemic, and as restrictions ease.
Full report
- Comparing customer service: mobile, home broadband and landline (PDF, 2.7 MB)
- Cymharu gwasanaeth cwsmeriaid: symudol, band eang yn y cartref a llinell dir (PDF, 1.3 MB)
Interactive report
Annexes
- Annex 2: Consumer research sources (PDF, 274.8 KB)
- Annex 3: Use of data from communications providers (PDF, 228.5 KB)
This is Ofcom’s fourth annual report on how service levels compare in telecoms.
We publish it to help people make informed decisions about which provider is best for them as part of our work to ensure fairness for customers.
By shining a light on the performance of the UK’s main mobile, broadband and home phone providers, this report allows people to look beyond the price and see what level of service they can expect from different providers. It also acts as an incentive for providers to improve their customer service.
This report covers customer experiences in 2019 and customer satisfaction levels in January 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic came to the UK. The pandemic is likely to have affected the levels of service received by telecoms customers (in areas such as new services and repair times) and this impact will be covered in our next annual report, to be published in 2021.
Update 4 May 2021
This is an amended version of the report published on 25 September 2020. It includes revised call abandonment and faults per 1,000 customers data.
Update 25 September 2020
This is an amended version of the report published on 21 August 2020. It now includes more comprehensive data relating to BT’s total loss of service faults. This replaces the smaller sample of said data in the original version of the report.
Full report
- Comparing customer service: mobile, home broadband and landline (PDF, 2.9 MB)
- Cymharu gwasanaeth cwsmeriaid: symudol, band eang yn y cartref a llinell dir (PDF, 500.1 KB)
Interactive report
Annexes
This is Ofcom’s third annual report on how service levels compare in telecoms.
As part of our work to ensure fairness for customers, we want to help people make more informed decisions about which provider is best for them. We also want to encourage providers to improve the quality of their services.
By shining a light on the performance of the UK’s main mobile, broadband and home phone providers, this report allows people to look beyond the price of a service.
Full report
- Choosing the best broadband, mobile and landline provider: Comparing service quality 2018 (PDF, 8.0 MB)
- Dewis y darparwr band eang, symudol a llinell dir orau: Cymharu Ansawdd Gwasanaeth 2018 (PDF, 2.2 MB)
Interactive report
Interactive report: Choosing the best broadband, mobile and landline provider 2018
Annexes
- Annex 2: Consumer research sources (PDF, 112.8 KB)
- Annex 3: Use of data from communications providers (PDF, 182.7 KB)
Research
- Customer Satisfaction Tracker: Summary of research findings (PDF, 1.0 MB)
- Quality of Customer Service – Reason to complain (PDF, 302.6 KB)
- Quality of Customer Service – Complaints handling (PDF, 1.5 MB)
- Quality of Customer Service – open data tables (CSV, 15.8 KB)
- Social media research to understand service quality (PDF, 1.8 MB)
This is the second annual service quality report to be published by Ofcom.
It shows the quality of service experienced by customers of the UK’s largest landline, broadband and mobile providers in 2017. The information has been collected through our own research and complaints data, and directly from providers and third parties.
Note: The complaints to Ofcom data on pages 35, 36 and 52 of the report was adjusted on 30 April 2019. All other data in the report remains unchanged.
Full report
- Choosing the best broadband, mobile and landline provider: Comparing service quality 2017 (PDF, 4.2 MB)
- Dewis y darparwr band eang, symudol a llinell dir orau: Cymharu Ansawdd Gwasanaeth 2017 (PDF, 1.2 MB)
Chapters
- Summary (PDF, 619.3 KB)
- Dashboards (PDF, 377.5 KB)
- Broadband and landline (PDF, 1.1 MB)
- Mobile (PDF, 721.6 KB)
- Business (PDF, 206.3 KB)
Annexes
- Annex 1: Approach to obtaining and analysing information from providers (PDF, 234.5 KB)
- Annex 2: Consumer research sources (PDF, 214.0 KB)
Research
This is the first annual service quality report to be published by Ofcom. It shows the quality of service experienced by customers of the UK’s largest landline, broadband and mobile providers in 2016. The information has been collected through our own research, and directly from providers.
The report follows on from the initial conclusions of Ofcom’s Digital Communications Review, published in February 2016, which found that improvements were needed in quality of service across the telecoms industry. We therefore committed to publish an annual report that would enable consumers to compare providers’ service quality.
We will publish service quality information at least annually, to update consumers on how providers are performing, and we will consider more frequent updates where appropriate.
Summaries
- Comparing Service Quality - summary (PDF, 1.8 MB)
- Cymharu Ansawdd Gwasanaeth - crynodeb o’r adroddiad (PDF, 2.3 MB)
Full report
Interactive report
This interactive tool helps you compare provider performance in detail. You can use it to check how your provider is doing in the areas most important to you. We have a desktop tool and a mobile version (note: this link takes you to an external site).
Annexes
- Annex 1 – Methodology for analysing provider data (PDF, 218.7 KB)
- Annex 2 – Consumer research used in the report (PDF, 167.4 KB)
- Annex 3 – Ofcom mobile research: technical and statistical methodologies (PDF, 251.2 KB)