Britain’s worst broadband revealed but is BT, Sky or Virgin bottom of the list?

If your broadband is constantly letting you down then you are not alone. It seems some of the UK’s biggest suppliers are struggling to keep customers connected with many suffering from dire downloads, constant dropouts and internet-breaking outages. This worrying update comes via the consumer team at Which? who say their recent customer survey has revealed many users aren’t getting a reliable broadband service.

To make matters worse, many have just been hit by record-breaking price rises of over 10 percent which has made accessing the web more expensive than ever.

So who is winning and losing when it comes to offering the best broadband?

Coming bottom of the pile are three hugely popular providers with Sky, Virgin Media and EE all seeing the lowest proportion of customers who had not experienced any issues. BT managed to beat those arch-rivals with 49 percent of its users avoiding problems.

Coming top of the broadband league are smaller providers including Hyperoptic, Shell Energy Broadband and Utility Warehouse.

These Internet Service Providers all performed better, with half or more of their customers not experiencing any performance issue in the twelve months. However, even with these providers, at least four in ten customers said they had experienced at least one problem.

According to Which? frequent connection dropouts were the most common broadband issue – with one in five (19 percent) of respondents affected. The second most common issue customers experienced was the connection speed

One in seven (14 percent) also said they had been left without a connection for at least an hour which is not ideal considering the number of people still working from home.

If you are having problems and you are out of your current contract then now could be a good time to switch suppliers.

Don’t forget, many smaller providers are popping up across the country with some offering cheaper

Speaking about the news, Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said: “A reliable connection is essential to modern life. Earlier this year, many broadband consumers were hit with mid-contract price hikes of more than 14 per cent – meaning that it’s more important than ever that their provider offers a reliable connection and good customer service.

“It’s completely unacceptable that customers who have faced these eye-watering increases are also experiencing so many problems with their connection. Broadband firms need to work harder to resolve these issues and offer a better service.

“While some customers are able to switch away to better service and prices, many are trapped in contracts where they either have to accept above inflation price hikes in the spring or pay exorbitant exit fees to leave the contract early. It’s absolutely critical that Ofcom’s review of inflation linked mid-contract hikes results in changes that ensure customers are never trapped in this situation again.”