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Ofcom reveals TalkTalk and Three are most complained-about networks

Ofcom has revealed the phone and broadband companies that have been really getting your goat. How did your network do?

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor
Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.
Expertise Films, TV, Movies, Television, Technology
Richard Trenholm
2 min read

Ofcom has revealed the phone and broadband companies that have been really getting your goat. The communications regulator has compared the number of complaints it's received from customers of the main mobile-phone networks and Internet service providers, giving a picture of who's providing the best -- and worst -- service.

Ofcom has added up the complaints you made between October 2010 and February 2011, and compared each company on a level playing field by working out the number of complaints per 1,000 customers. Below are some graphs of your grumbles.

O2 tops the mobile networks' graph (above) for satisfaction, with 0.04 complaints per 1,000 customers. Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone each had more than double that number of complaints. Three's been giving its customers the right old hump, with 0.15 complaints per 1,000 customers.

Virgin Media leads both the landline comparison -- pictured above -- and broadband -- pictured below -- beating BSkyB, BT Retail, and TalkTalk. BT managed to keep its landline customers significantly happier than its broadband users.

TalkTalk really got up its users' noses, with 1.78 complaints per 1,000 landline customers. Complaints spiked in November 2010, when Ofcom investigated TalkTalk for billing people who'd cancelled their service.

Ofcom receives 450 telecoms complaints per day on a range of issues. Grievances range from misselling and billing errors to outages and customer-service problems. Here's the full report abut complaints.

What's your biggest gripe with your network? If you've complained to your network, were you happy with the way they dealt with you, or are you ejecting yourself from your contract as soon as you can? Have a grumble in the comments section below or on our Facebook wall.