Automatic compensation for poor broadband and landline services (UK)
13th November 2017.
Small and medium sized businesses which opt for residential broadband and landline services instead of business contracts will automatically receive around nine times the current level of compensation for slow repairs, missed appointments and delayed installations under a new Ofcom scheme that will also benefit up to 2.6m residential customers.
BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Zen Internet – who together serve around 90% of landline and broadband customers in the UK – have already signed up to the scheme and Ofcom suggests that Plusnet and EE are also ready to join.
When the scheme becomes operational in approximately 15 months time, participating providers will automatically credit customers’ accounts with a fixed amount of compensation whenever they experience
- delayed repair following loss of service – £8 per day service is unavailable after two days
- missed appointments – £25 for a missed appointment or one that is cancelled with less than 24 hours notice
- delays with start of a new service – £5 for each calendar day of delay, including the day of the missed start
Ofcom anticipates that £142 million will be paid out under automatic compensation – considerably less that the £185 million suggested in the March consultation *, in which it also sought views on higher fixed compensation rates than have been agreed.
While many standard business contracts already include compensation for a number of problems, Ofcom’s research found that 49% of SMEs were not aware that they were entitled to it. It has therefore also proposed new rules to ensure they are given clearer and more detailed information up front about their entitlements to compensation.
‘Statement: Automatic compensation’ (’Main Documents’) includes links to annexes covering the industry compensation scheme, transparency requirements for SME customers and other supporting documents.
* ‘Compensation for poor landline or broadband service (UK)’ (CPA News – 30th March 2017)
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