New iphone costs £10 a month more with big mobile networks

‘The reign of smaller networks over the big players goes to show how important customer support is’

MOBILE phone customers using big network providers pay £10 a month more for the latest iphone than the market average, a survey has found.

Analysis by Which? found the average contract price for an iphone XS is 18 per cent more expensive with Vodafone, O2, EE and Three.

The watchdog also found that the three biggest operators failed to offer satisfactory service despite often costing more than smaller rivals.

Vodafone was rated the worst in the mobile satisfaction survey, with onestar ratings for customer service, value for money and technical support. One in five customers reported poor service, including complaints handling and the way their queries were dealt with, while 13 per cent said technical support was poor and 19 per cent rated it as poor value for money.

EE, the UK’S largest network, also continues to rank among the worst, with 13 per cent of its customers rating it as poor value for money, and just a quarter giving it a good or excellent rating for technical support.

Some 10 per cent of O2 customers said the company was poor value for money.

Three had the highest customer score among the “big four” networks for the fourth year, despite only having average scores in most categories.

Eighty per cent of customers rated Three as good or excellent value for money.

Customers mostly rated smaller “virtual networks” – those that lease spectrum from main operators – more highly, and Which? said they were usually cheaper for both sim-only and certain contract deals.

Natalie Hitchins, Which? head of home products and services, said: “The continuing reign of smaller networks over the big players goes to show how important customer support and value for money are to mobile users. If you think you are paying too much or are not getting the level of service you expect you should shop around for a better deal.

“You might find you save yourself some money and probably a lot of grief, too.”

Vodafone said: “We are sorry that Which? members aren’t as happy as they could be with our service and are working hard to understand the issue.”

An EE spokeswoman said: “We’re ranked top by Opensignal for mobile experience in the UK, which is supported by other independent reports from Ofcom and Rootmetrics.”