Communications regulator Ofcom has ruled that automatic compensation for broadband faults will be available to customers experiencing service faults.
Customers of BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Zen internet (roughly 90% of UK customers) will be able to claim £8 per day for disconnections not fixed after 2 days, £5 for delayed repairs, and £25 for scheduled engineer visits which do not happen.
Ofcom estimates automatic pay-outs could exceed £142m annually, considerably more than the estimated 15% of claims currently paid out by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) each year.
The new system has been designed to improve service delivery, encourage users to report problems, and incentivise ISPs to keep a tighter control of faults.
Customers will be expected to follow a complaints procedure to receive compensation – revised guidance will be published in advance of the changes coming into effect in 2019. Existing rules detailing what types of faults should currently be referred to your ISP are available here.
As before, compensation is not expected to cover internal network or internet connection delivery problems at a property, with BT levelling charges on customers who request unnecessary engineer call-outs.
Broadband customers can learn more about their statutory rights on Ofcom’s website here.
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