Ofcom's grumble-o-meter lights up for EE, TalkTalk, Vodafone
- Reference: 1771662428
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/02/21/ofcom_q3_2025_complaints/
- Source link:
EE, TalkTalk, and Vodafone generated the most vitriol about fixed broadband, according to Ofcom. For landlines it was TalkTalk, Sky Mobile got the most for pay-monthly mobile, and EE again topped pay TV.
This covers complaints to the authority during the quarter from July to September last year (Q3 2025), relative to the size of the telecom operators' customer bases (i.e. per 100,000 customers).
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For fixed broadband, EE, TalkTalk, and Vodafone all hit 10 grumbles per 100K customers, but BT and Virgin Media were not far behind with 9 and 7 - the average was 8. Plusnet had the fewest complaints at 4. The gripes in this category were mostly about faults, service, and provisioning.
With landline users, TalkTalk again provoked the most moans, with 7 per 100K, but EE was a close second with 6, while BT, NOW Broadband, and Plusnet all had 5. Utility Warehouse received just 1 grievance per 100K.
When it comes to pay-monthly mobile operators, the number of grievances was relatively low. Even the top scorer, Sky Mobile, generated just 3 per 100K customers, with the average being 2. Ofcom said criticisms pertained to how customer complaints were handled by the operator itself, or issues with faults, services, and provisioning in the case of Three.
For pay TV services, EE registered the most moans at 6 per 100K customers, but Virgin Media generated 5, Sky was on 3 and TalkTalk 2. Handling of complaints by the operators was again the biggest source of dissatisfaction, but switching providers was a close second.
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The overall volume of complaints per 100K subscribers appears to have fallen noticeably over the past 15 years or so, according to Ofcom charts. Way back at the start of 2011, the regulator recorded at least 40 per 100K for broadband and 38 per 100K for landlines.
Pay-monthly mobile complaints peaked at 19 per 100K in Q4 of 2011 and have steadily declined since. The level of pay TV gripes went no higher than 8 per 100K in 2018.
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Ofcom has produced [7]interactive charts of the number of customer criticisms it received, so readers can check them out historically by sector or by a chart comparing different providers. The underlying data is available in CSV format for anyone who cares to analyze it themselves. ®
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Re: Wrists
4-10 complaints per 100,000 accounts seems a very low value to me. Unfortunately that specific number can't be compared directly to energy or water customer service because Ofcom count only complaints made to them, not made to companies, whereas the data for energy and water is all instances of complaints to companies. There are other proxies though: I had a look at the relevant ADR (Ombudsman) reports for energy and for telecoms, and at a broad brush it shows telcos/comms had one third of the number of complaints per account for adjudication as did energy suppliers. And you'd need to allow for the fact there's rather more than twice as many telco accounts as there are energy accounts, so like for like that's indicating telcos have one sixth the level of complaints as energy suppliers.
So, fun thought it is to moan, the available data suggests that most telcos and communications companies actually do a pretty good job of either not giving grounds for complaint, or of resolving directly. Thinking about my own experience as household administrator for five telco/comms contracts, I've needed to contact only one supplier in the past five years. Even most switching requires nothing other than the purchase and setup transaction for the new account.
Now, whether name and shame works is a bigger question - it certainly is part of a largely compliant telecoms sector; Clearly it is less effective in energy.
Re: Wrists
Correction: Third sentence should read "number of complaints for adjudication", not "number of complaints per account for adjudication".
Nightmares are also dreams
Well if you can say nothing else about TalkTalk, at least their performance has been consistent over the last couple of decades.
Wrists
telecoms regulator has named and shamed
Oh their wrists must be hurting... hmm wait, it doesn't say slapped.
Ok so regulator reminded them their name and "shamed"... I wonder if they know what it is.
I am confused.