Oftel: more complaints from 3 subscribers

http://www.3gnewsroom.com/3g_news/nov_03/news_3960.shtml

Back in 2003 but I still believe is relevant


The UK telecom watchdog Oftel received on average more complaints from 3's customers than any other mobile operators. The figures published by Oftel shows Virgin Mobile to be the best network with less than 0.1 complaint per thousand subscribers between April 1 and the end of September.

Vodafone was second with 0.1 complaints per thousand customers. Orange lost the best network title and is tied with T-Mobile and O2 with 0.2 complaints for every 1000 customers.

3 launched UK's first 3G network in March of this year but has been hampered by limited network coverage and drop calls. Oftel received 552 complaints about 3's service but were unable to obtain customer base information from 3 to make comparison with other carriers. The operator had about 155,000 subscribers by the end of August and it is estimated about 186,000 by end of September. In this case there would be 2.97 complaint for every 1000 customers.

The top three complaints received by Oftel included companies ignoring customer's complaint (6%), issues regarding operators' tariff and options package (6%) and problems with handsets (5%). Consumer complaining about the battery running down quickly and hands-free kits not working with the phone were examples given by Oftel regarding problems with handsets. These are also the problems faced by 3's subscribers.

WCDMA handsets, used by 3, tend to have shorter battery life and are bigger in size than current 2G mobiles. Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo faced similar difficulties when they launched their 3G services over two years ago. Short battery life in handsets and limited coverage has left the carrier lagging behind its rival KDDI.