Broadband complaints: how to get one taken seriously

Broadband complaints have an ending most people never get to. Behind every provider in the country, from the household names to the network that dug up your street last spring, sits a free and independent adjudicator that can order the company to fix the problem, refund you and pay you for the trouble. It costs you nothing to use. Nobody on the phone is going to bring it up, so this is the part of the process you have to know about in advance.

What counts as a complaint?

Anything you have raised with your provider that it has not put right. The bar really is that low. A line that keeps dropping, a bill that does not match what you were sold, an install that never happened, a cancellation the company insists it never received, a charge you have now disputed twice. No legal argument required, and no particular form of words.

What you do need is for the provider to know it is a complaint rather than a conversation. So say the word. Complaints get logged separately from ordinary calls, and only a logged complaint starts the clock that eventually lets you go over their head.

Start with your provider, and start a paper trail

Providers publish a complaints procedure, usually called a code of practice, setting out how to raise one and what happens next. Find it, use the route it names, and put the complaint in writing even if you phone as well. An email or a webform beats a call you cannot prove happened.

Then keep four things. They are the whole of your case later on.

• The date you first complained. Everything downstream is counted from it. If you are not sure, use the earliest date you can evidence rather than the one you remember.
• The reference number. A complaint with no reference is very easily reopened as a brand new complaint, which quietly resets the clock to zero.
• What you asked for. A repair, a refund, a named sum, an apology. General dissatisfaction is hard for anyone to rule on.
• What they said back, and when. Screenshots, emails, who you spoke to. Nothing elaborate. A folder will do.

How long do you wait before escalating broadband complaints?

Six weeks, and that is new. Under Ofcom rules applying to complaints raised on or after 8 April 2026, your provider has to offer you alternative dispute resolution six weeks after you complain, rather than the eight weeks it used to be. Ofcom set the change out in its review of dispute resolution in the telecoms sector.

Two weeks does not sound like much. The reasoning behind it is the interesting part: Ofcom found that 94 per cent of complaints made to the biggest telecoms companies were already resolved inside six weeks, which means a complaint still open at that point is rarely one that is about to sort itself out. If yours is going round in circles at six weeks, the evidence says it will still be going round at eight.

The shorter wait is not retrospective, which catches people out. It applies to complaints raised on or after that April date, so an old grievance you first reported last year is still on the eight week timetable.

What is a deadlock letter?

It is your provider stating in writing that it has done everything it intends to do. Once you have one, you wait for nothing. You can go straight to the ombudsman, and the letter itself has to tell you which scheme to approach and how to reach it.

You are allowed to ask for one. If a provider has twice told you its answer is final, asking it to confirm that in writing as a deadlock letter is an ordinary request, and it has two ways to respond: write the letter, or reopen your complaint properly. Both of those move you forward, which is more than another phone call will do.

Which ombudsman does your provider belong to?

There are two approved schemes, and every provider has to be in one of them by law. Yours must tell you which, and it is normally named in the complaints code of practice on its website.

• The Communications Ombudsman. Formerly Ombudsman Services, renamed in 2023.
• CISAS. The Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme, run by the dispute resolution body CEDR.

Do not guess between them. Sending your case to the wrong one will not lose you the case, but it will lose you a fortnight, and you have already waited six weeks to get here.

What the ombudsman can and cannot do

It can order your provider to sort the fault out, to correct or refund a bill, to apologise, and to pay you a sum for the inconvenience. The decision binds the provider if you accept it and binds nobody if you do not, so the courts stay open to you either way.

Here is the honest part. Most awards are small. The maximum a scheme can hand down runs into thousands of pounds, and the great majority of broadband disputes settle far below that. Walk in expecting to be made whole for three months of working off a phone hotspot and you will walk out disappointed.

Go anyway. It is free, an independent decision carries weight a phone call never does, and a failure to fix your line is a genuinely different question from a failure to pay you for it. Automatic compensation is the other half of this, and it only covers a narrow set of failures at a handful of providers. The ombudsman route covers every kind of dispute, at every provider.

When the answer is to leave instead

Sometimes the complaint is worth pursuing and the relationship is not. Those are two separate decisions and you are allowed to make both. Escalating does not stop you switching, and switching does not withdraw your complaint.

If the real problem is that the connection has never been what you were sold, leaving is often the cleaner route, because a provider that cannot meet its own minimum guaranteed speed usually has to release you without a penalty. Slow broadband covers how to test the line in a way a provider will accept, and broadband exit fees covers what leaving costs when no such get-out applies.

Before you decide anything, find out who else can reach you. Coverage is street by street rather than town by town, so the only honest answer comes from your own postcode. Put it through the availability checker and see what the alternatives actually look like from where you live.

Frequently asked questions

Does it cost anything to go to the ombudsman?

No. Both approved schemes are free to you. That is the part most people do not realise, and it is why a complaint that has been going nowhere for a month is worth escalating rather than abandoning.

How long do I have to escalate after a deadlock letter?

Twelve months from the date on the letter. That sounds generous, and it goes quickly if you spend it waiting for a provider to come back to you. Put the deadline somewhere you will actually see it.

Can I complain about a small provider I have never heard of?

Yes, and the route is identical. Every company selling broadband to households and small businesses in the UK has to belong to one of the two approved schemes. The size of the company changes which scheme you write to, and nothing else.

Will the ombudsman get me out of my contract?

Sometimes. Do not count on it. The schemes exist to put right a specific failure, so a decision is far more likely to be a repair, a refund, an apology or a payment than a free exit. If leaving is the actual goal, the exit fee rules are a better place to start.

What if I disagree with the decision?

You do not have to accept it. A decision binds the provider once you accept it and binds nobody if you walk away, which leaves the small claims court open to you. Accepting closes the matter, so read the outcome properly before you agree to it.