TalkTalk is still most moaned about telco

British telco TalkTalk continues to be the most complained-about provider according to a new Ofcom Telecoms Complains report for the fourth quarter 2011.

Ofcom said that the TalkTalk group still generated the highest number of complaints and that they focused on billing and customer service issues. Conversely, Virgin Media did better than the three competing fixed-line operators of BT, BskyB and TalkTalk.

To put it in perspective, TalkTalk suffered 0.78 complaints per 1,000 landline customers while Virgin Media was four times better with a complaint rate of just 0.18 per 1,000 customers.

The watchdog noted that mobile telephony generally featured a much lower rate of complaints than fixed line and broadband services. Orange topped the complaints table largely due to their announced increase in monthly plan prices for all customers, even those on fixed contracts.

O2 fared best for mobile, with an impressively low 0.02 complaints per 1,000 – over eight times better than Orange and over seven times better than Three.