Brits headbutting walls over broadband hell

Broadband and mobile behemoth O2 says Brits are still incredibly frustrated by broadband providers, with a fifth of us having to contact providers over three times to sort out service wobbles. O2 adds that over a million households are spending at least six hours setting up their broadband service.

Of course, all these soundbitey stats come from one of those lovely surveys - this time of 1,500 broadband users.

Connection speeds and customer support bother us most (what else is there?) while a quarter of questioned users said they were unhappy with the service they were getting. Some 20 per cent said they had problems with getting through to their provider.

One in eight broadband users said they would be looking to switch provider over the coming months. While these guys are obviously crazy (have you tried switching broadband recently?), it underlines what most of us already knew - that we're being done over by greedy large ISPs.

Inner city life?

"It's clear from previous studies and backed up by this research that UK broadband customers have low overall satisfaction and are not having an easy ride when it comes to set up, maintenance and customer support of their service," said Sally Cowdry, marketing director, O2 UK.

Over half (56 per cent) of those questioned admitted to losing their temper with their computer due to broadband issues. According to O2, the most consistently stressed broadband users are in Cardiff with 61 per cent of those questioned admitting to losing their temper. Meanwhile the most dissatisfied users are in Bristol with nearly a quarter (24 per cent) planning to change provider in the next 3-6 months.

Brighton emerges from the survey as the most broadband-savvy part of the UK, with 2 in 3 requiring no support at all to set up or manage their service. All of which rather begs the question - did they bother to speak to anybody in the country?