BT voted worst home phone provider

By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) - Consumers in a YouGov poll have voted Britain's largest home telephone provider, BT, the worst in the market.

The telecommunications giant, which has a 43 percent share of the home phone market, came bottom of the survey for the first time since 2005.

Some 30 percent of BT customers polled said they were unsatisfied with the service, 7 percent more than in July last year, the research for price comparison service uSwitch.com shows.

BT was found to have the lowest scores in nine out of 11 categories, including "value for money" for the fifth time running.

It also came last for "ease to interpret bill", "online account management", "ease of use" and "set-up support" and in the "best deal for you" category which assesses whether customers feel their provider has placed them on the most appropriate plan.

However, last year's winner, Tiscali, saw the largest drop in overall satisfaction. It fell 10 percent to come third overall: 23 percent of its customers said they were unsatisfied, compared to 13 percent last time.

Virgin Media, the second-largest in the market, came second to last with 27 percent of its 4.1 million customers not satisfied.

Overall, more than a quarter (26 percent) of the 11,870 people polled said they were not satisfied with their home phone service, up 4 percent on the year.