Complaints over telecoms firms up 10pc this year

A RISE in complaints against telecoms operators in Ireland has been recorded by the watchdog ComReg.

The telecoms regulator said 1,473 complaints were registered between January and March, a 10pc rise compared with 1,338 complaints at the same time last year.

Eir, which is the largest telecoms company in the country, attracted most complaints with 550 (167 mobile, 383 fixed), as well as a chunk of the 392 premium-rate services (PRS) complaints for the sector.

It also has the most complaints per thousand customers in the mobile sector.

This covers the aftermath of the launch of GoMo, its budget mobile operator that raced to more than 100,000 subscribers in three months but had some difficulties with number portability.

Vodafone was next, with 298 complaints (138 for mobile, 160 for fixed), and a share of the 392 PRS complaints, while Three attracted 91 specific mobile complaints plus its share of the PRS complaints.

Vodafone had the most complaints per thousand customers in the fixed-line sector, ComReg reported.

The regulator declined to offer a breakdown of the 392 PRS complaints by individual operator.

However, it said Eir (1,475 “issues”) and Three (1,203 “issues”) recorded the majority of the logged PRS “issues” over the period, a subset of which include complaints.

Sky received 62 complaints and Virgin received 26 complaints.

The biggest single mobile complaint topic in the period was around switching numbers, with Vodafone and Eir temporarily at loggerheads over customers switching to GoMo.

The next biggest complaint against mobile operators was being “billed more than the agreed amount”.

Being “billed after cancellation” and “loss of service” were also prominent complaints.

Billing issues also dominated complaints against fixedline telecom operators for broadband and home phone services.

However, almost all complaints against Irish operators were resolved within six weeks of being raised.

Meanwhile, the main three mobile operators are set to lend the fixed wireless operator Imagine spare bandwidth capacity in a leasing arrangement for three months.

ComReg said it had no objection to the plan, which would see Eir, Vodafone and Three give Imagine access to some of its 3.6Ghz spectrum in a variety of locations across the country.