BBC Watchdog now in its new regular 8pm Wednesday slot, has published the results from its survey that allowed viewers to rate their broadband provider
in a number of categories. The full results can be found on their website.
The BBC is keen to point out that the results are not a scientific statistical survey, but a snapshot of the personal opinions from the 50,000 voters. We have combined the results into one
table:
Tables 1 and 4 combined
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Notes:
(*)TABLE 4 – PROPORTIONAL SATISFACTION RANKING
This table lists all of the companies surveyed according to the proportion of ‘satisfied’ or ‘extremely satisfied’ votes. The total number of these ‘satisfied’ votes for each company was worked out
as a percentage of the total number of people who responded about that company. The companies are listed in order of satisfaction.
(**)TABLE 1 – THE BEST BROADBAND PROVIDERS
This table lists – in order of the total number of votes cast – the companies that, overall, viewers who took part in the survey were most happy with. It was calculated by adding together the
‘satisfied’ and ‘extremely satisfied’ ratings in each of the five categories. This total is the number listed after each company’s name.
Watchdog are aware that some providers such as Be, Entanet resellers and Vodafone @ Home are missing from the ratings. This was due to the fact they were not features in the letters sent to
Watchdog.
thinkbroadband.com has its own ratings system, where you can rate your broadband provider on the categories of reliability,
speed and customer service. This rating system is what is used to populate the Rating column in our ISP listings. For more
detail including ratings for the last six months our compare tool may be useful. We see between 55,000 and 75,000 ratings
each month.
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We can see why Plusnet have retained the Metronet brand – 90% satisfaction vs 70% at Plusnet and 69% at Force9 🙂
Personally i dont think the survey is much use at all, which is a shame 🙁 They could have calculated results with a much better method then they actually did, if you look at the watchdog website you soon get an idea how pointless most of it is with the likes of tiscali and BT being both some of the faves and also at the same time the worse?? go figure!
The method of presenting results is confusing with the same company near top of the Best and also near bottom of the Worst. The percentage satisfaction figure is more easily understood though differences of a few percent (and corresponding relative ranking) are probably not significant.
Given Watchdog’s flawed number crunching, the only conclusion reached seems to be that we have big providers who have the most customers (surprise there then), and Biscit are no good (another intake of breath). What about all the ISPs in between? Pathetic.
You can tell that BBC Watchdog are not used to conducting surveys/statistical analysis – tables 1 & 2 are useless as it’s obvious that the ISPs with the most customers will come out on top! however tables 3 & 4 probably paint a more realist picture.
i can’t see any way to provide feedback on the survery, other than the general contact form at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/contact_computers.shtml
I guess the isps with the largest staffs just spent time filling in forms via the ir marketing department. I can’t believe for a second, there are that many satisfied talk talk customers… Personal experience and my own person al survey of people I know shows that talk talk is most complained about… Be interesting to see the corresponding server records…. ie listed by ip address…
well it looks good the way thinkbroadband have provided the info i.e. Brightview Group in 3 out of the top 4 1st 2nd and 4th would have been good to see the total number of users each isp had to work out how many % of user base voted
haha i have to say i agree some what with hoodamnny. I have read so many complaint forums about virgin yet they are very highly rated. It would have been a blow if they’re ratings had been very poor during their rebranding to Virgin Media…how convenient.