Brits “Very Frustrated” With Broadband January 29, 2008
Read more Broadband , Gizmodo UK , Laptops , Online , PC
Setting up a broadband connection should be a snap but, of course, it isn’t, with more than 1 million UK households spending up to 6 hours trying to set up, or troubleshoot, their new broadband service.
The stats come from a new O2 Broadband survey of 1500 broadband Brits, with 1-in-5 claiming that they had to call their service providers at least three times to get it sorted.
The survey set out to see what ticked off broadband users the most and speed – or lack thereof – topped the poll. Nearly a quarter complained about the lack of speed but then, the survey did also discover that half of the survey had no idea what speed service they were paying for in the first place.
Poor customer service really bugged 20% of the survey, with many saying just getting through to the providers was a chore, followed by grumbles about having to use Premium Rate numbers.
“It’s clear from previous studies and backed up by this research that UK broadband customers have low overall satisfaction and are not having an easy ride when it comes to set up, maintenance and customer support of their service,” said Sally Cowdry, Marketing Director, O2 UK.
Finally, for some, broadband was the straw that broke the typical user’s back with over half admitting that they had lost their temper and took it out on their poor computers.
Shocking, but as regular Gizmodo readers have told us, UK broadband ain’t all that it’s cracked up to be.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Comments
This sounds about right to me. After three months of trying to get to the bottom of my slow broadband speeds, I finally found out that Virgin have been capping my download speeds at half a megabit/s without my knowledge. Apparently downloading 3gb of data in 7days was seen as breach of their fair use policy!
It really is crappy over here. We get faster speeds than a lot of areas, but once your broadband goes down you have to accept that you're probably going to look somewhere else for internet for a week or two. One incident with BT left me without broadband for two months...
Easy instructions:
1 - take installation disk
2 - burn installation disk
3 - plug all the bits together
4 - download porn
I have had mixed experiences with different broadband suppliers (and being a student I've tried a few), but setting it up has never caused me any issues. Speed is my main complaint.
Pipex were the first provider I was with (after using them for dial up before that), and it was pretty good, although they did change our login info without telling us one day which caused numerous national rate phone calls before they worked it out.
I was then with Telewest (now Virgin) for a year. Getting that set up was a hassle as it involved getting cable installed in the flat, but after that it was pretty easy going with good speeds.
Demon was the next to try out after a change of address, and that was et up quickly, with polite and knowledgabe staff when I was checking when BT would enable our broadband and very good speeds. They were also kind enough to not enforce the 12 month contract as we were only in the property 9 months. They get my full recommendation.
Broadband was already set up in my current flat with Tiscali. I haven't had any issues with connecting, but in the evenings the speeds are woefully slow (as in they are the same or worse than dial up 56k), and there is nothing their support can do about that being as they are just a network under load that they haven't put in place the infrastructure to support.
I've just had a 16meg O2 broadband line put in and I have been amazed at how simple quick and stress free the entire process was, not to mention cheap (£10 a month).
I didn't have to talk to a single person, I put my order in online and then got regular updates over txt, which was extremly helpful. They even txt on the morning the router was getting deliverd to ensure it was still an appropriate time with an option to reply to the txt to change the date!
From time of order to going live was about 10 days!
Also the speed is pretty good as well about 8-9meg.
Easy, for best broadband, and service, and NO throttling, and excellent customer service, switch to IDNet. It just works !! PS: You get what you pay for. If you want cheap, stay where you are. www.idnet.com
Virgin DSL sticks it to me as well. Their technical support charge me 25p/min everytime I call to complain about slowness only for them to diagnose my PC for problems when the problem is with their sometimes decent but mostly shite slow speeds. So far it has cost me 18 pounds. Any price savings in their package deal is lost in calls to technical support magnified by the time wasted.
I've tried as cheap as poss with Eclipse this year and they have not impressed, although at one point H3 and WoW going at full pelt is hardly reasonable use ( for 22hrs? ) although in my defense being told reasonable use is outside the hours of 6 - 12pm which is no good for workers. After Chris's advertising I'm now considering O2 umm Nah
UK is one of the slowest countries for internet, it sucks!
And they dont upgrade there lines!
% months ago i was running at 3 constantly, now due to more connections to the nearby transmitter im lucky to even get 1.2.
And thats not it, this is the ball ache part/ laughability of bt part:
They messed up our internet and cancled us by accident, and said we will give you the top internet we do for free for a year, which is like 16. BUT if only i was on the line and no one else in my area the max i can get is...4!!!
Seriously, internet sucks, and BT sucks more.
J
our BT internet got capped. 120gb/mo is not that outrageous for 4 students living in the same flat. Phoned BT to give them a bit of my mind. Got a MACcode, switched to AOL via carphone warehouse, got myself a free PS3 for the frustration of having a continuously slow connection.
It really sucks when the internet gets throttled - especially when you're in the middle of watching a video clip or something.
I am thinking about getting mobile broadband instead (via 3G).