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Watchdog release broadband survey results

The results are in from a broadband survey by 50,000 viewers.

BBC’s Watchdog viewers were asked to rate their broadband provider on areas such as customer service, the set-up process, cancellation, value for money and reliability. 

However, BBC Watchdog point out that “The results aren’t presented as a scientific statistical survey, but a unique snapshot of the personal opinions of the 50,000 viewers who chose to take part. As such, it isn’t intended to represent the views of Watchdog or the BBC’s view of any of the companies, or their current performance.”.

The results indicate a good show for the smaller broadband providers, with Global, Waitrose, Zen, Madasfish and Metronet scoring over 90% in overall satisfaction.  Three of these (Global, Waitrose and Madasafish) belong to the Brightview group, a reseller of broadband services.  Zen is consistently scored highly for satisfaction and has won many awards over the last year.

It is worth bearing in mind that there were many less overall votes for smaller suppliers.  For example, only 166 people in total voted with a satisfied / extremely satisfied rating for Global, and only 8 people were dissatisfied.  However, Global, Waitrose and Madasafish have over 3000 satisfied customers between them.  In addition, Madasafish along with many other smaller providers often have customer support staff regurlarly posting on popular message boards to help users with any issues.

The now defunct Biscit came out as the worst provider, with Bulldog following behind.  Out of the larger providers, Telewest (now part of the Virgin Media group) gave the best show with Demon, Eclipse and Virgin (Virgin.net at the time) having a decent satisfaction rating.  Orange however gave a poor show with over half of their voters being dissatisfied with the service.

As pointed out, this is only a snapshot of personal opinions at a given time so consumers should use the results as a guide, rather than the basis of choosing a broadband provider.

Basic results

Most satisfied with their broadband provider:

1. Global – 95%
2. Waitrose – 94%
3. Zen – 93%
4. Madasafish – 91%
5. Metronet – 90%
6. Nildram – 86%
7. Telewest – 85%
8. Freedom2Surf – 82%
9. Tesco – 80%
10. Demon – 77%
11. Eclipse – 76%
12. Virgin – 74%
13. NTL – 73%
14. Supanet – 72%
15= Plusnet – 70%
15= UK_Online – 70%
17= AOL_Europe – 69%
17= Force 9 – 69%
19. One.Tel – 66%
20. BT – 64%
21. Homecall – 62%
22. Pipex – 59%
23. Tiscali – 53%
24. ToucanSurf – 52%
25. Sky – 49%
26. TalkTalk – 47%
27. Orange – 42%
28. Bulldog – 37%
29. Biscit – 23%

Least satisfied with their broadband provider:

1. Biscit – 77%
2. Bulldog – 63%
3. Orange – 58%
4. TalkTalk – 53%
5. Sky – 51%
6. ToucanSurf -48%
7. Tiscali – 47%
8. Pipex – 41%
9. Homecall – 38%
10. BT – 36%
11. One_Tel – 34%
12= AOL_Europe – 31%
12= Force 9 – 31%
14= Plusnet – 30%
14= UK_Online – 30%
16. Supanet – 28%
17. NTL – 27%
18. Virgin – 26%
19. Eclipse – 24%
20. Demon – 23%
21. Tesco – 20%
22. Freedom2Surf – 18%
23. Telewest – 15%
24. Nildram – 14%
25. Metronet – 10%
26. Madasafish – 9%
27. Zen – 7%
28. Waitrose – 6%
29. Global – 5%

The full results can be viewed here at the BBC website.