Saf Malik
giffgaff named Network of the Year at the annual awards ceremony
Smaller providers were the big winners at the Uswitch Mobile Awards as giffgaff was named Network of the Year.
Asda Mobile took the Best Network for Customer Service award and Smarty won Best Pay-As-You-Go Network.
The awards recognise elegance in the mobile industry and were voted for by more than 17,000 consumers as well as a judging panel of experts in the fields of technology, consumer affairs, and personal finance.
Another smaller provider, Lebara, was named Best Value SIM Only.
Apple beat Samsung to be named Manufacturer of the year and also scooped Handset of the Year for the iPhone 12 Pro Max – one of the company’s first 5G enabled devices.
| 20 February 2021
UK mobile operators Three and Vodafone have hiked their prices, with new charges coming into effect in April.
Three pay-monthly customers who signed up or renewed their contract on or after 29 October 2020 will see an increase of 4.5% on their bills, while those who joined or renewed between 29 May 2015 and 28 October 2020 will have an increase of 1.4%.
A Three spokesperson commented: “Like other mobile network providers, our pay-monthly plans are subject to an annual price increase.”
Meanwhile, Vodafone customers who joined or renewed their contract after 9 December 2020 will also have a 4.5% increase effective from April. Those who signed up before 9 December will have a bill increase in line with the ONS retail price index, announced in March and effective from April.
| 16 February 2021
The ‘big four’ UK broadband providers - BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media - need to go some way to providing overall customer satisfaction, according to new research by Uswitch.com.
The research was conducted as part of the 2021 Uswitch Broadband Awards, which recognise excellence in the consumer broadband industry. The awards were voted for by more than 17,000 broadband customers, as well as by a panel of expert judges from the fields of consumer affairs, personal finance and technology.
The findings showed that just 42% of customers from the big four firms have been satisfied with their provider’s service during the past year, with more people than ever relying on broadband during the pandemic.
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Speaking about the new research, Ernest Doku, broadband expert at Uswitch.com, comments: “The stakes in this year’s Uswitch Broadband Awards have never been higher. Months of lockdown living - and working - have seen millions of people rely on their broadband connection at all times of the day.
“For the past year, the performance and reliability of our broadband has underpinned our work, social life and leisure time. Faced with that challenge, the Big Four all found times tough, with none of them scoring a customer satisfaction rate above 50%. This could be a result of the perfect storm of surging demand and a decrease in staffing levels at call centres just as the number of customer issues soared.