HUNDREDS of thousands of Talk Talk customers who have suffered poor internet connections and service for the past year-and-a-half will finally have the chance to quit this month when their contracts end.

The telephone and broadband operator, owned by Carphone Warehouse, was voted the Money section’s villain of the year in 2006 after a deluge of letters from angry readers.

The company became the first to offer “free” broadband in April 2006. It signed up 340,000 customers in the first eight weeks following a big publicity campaign. But things soon turned sour when it could not cope with demand. At one stage, up to 200,000 people were waiting for their broadband connection. Thousands were left without a service for months as Talk Talk struggled to get them online, and even when they were connected, many suffered frustrating problems.

Steve Weller at comparison firm Uswitch said: “Talk Talk’s customer services are still nowhere near as good as some of its rivals. Many frustrated customers will be looking to leave as soon as their contracts end.”

Navina Bartlett, 31, from London, said: “I signed up because the ‘free broadband’ concept looked great at the time. But problems started as soon as I set it up. My broadband has never worked properly and I’ve had to wait hours to speak to someone at a call centre in India.”

She was even left without broadband for more than a month when Talk Talk decided to automatically “upgrade” her service from a 2 megabit (Mb) to 8Mb speed. “I asked for compensation and they told me that as the broadband was free I didn’t have a case. I’m very angry,” she said.

Bartlett is one of 871,000 Talk Talk customers who will this autumn come to the end of their 18-month contract and will for the first time have the chance to move without penalty.

The latest customer-satisfac-tion survey by Uswitch found that 270,000 Talk Talk customers were still not satisfied with their service, and could therefore choose to quit the firm.

Talk Talk has pumped £15m of extra cash into customer services but the investment has yet to pay dividends as satisfaction levels have dropped a further 1% between last October and July, the Uswitch research shows.

Just 69% of Talk Talk customers are now satisfied, placing it second to bottom in the poll, above Orange. This compares with 78% of customers with top performer Plus Net.

Talk Talk’s deal remains competitive on price. Its Talk 2 International offer comes with “free” broadband if you pay £16.39 a month for the phone service and a one-off £29.99 connection fee.

The service includes free evening and weekend calls to UK landlines as well as to 36 international destinations, including Australia, America and France. The broadband has a speed of up to 8Mb with a 40 gigabyte (GB) download limit.

A good alternative, however, is Tiscali’s Broadband & Anytime Talk package, at up to 8Mb, that offers free UK landline calls at any time as well as landline calls to 10 international locations, including the US, France and Australia.

The broadband is the same as with Talk Talk, and it does not have a monthly download limit although it is subject to a fair usage policy. This means that if your provider thinks you are downloading too much, it could shut down your service.

The package costs £19.99 per month with a £30 set-up fee and the contract length is 12 months – so it is slightly more expensive than Talk Talk, but you get better service with a 72% satisfaction rate, according to Uswitch.

If you are looking for even better customer service, Plus Net offers a deal with up to 8Mb broadband and free calls to UK landlines at any time for £20.99 a month. However, it has a 1GB download limit, so it would not be suitable if you wanted to access films or lots of music.

Some experts believe Talk Talk has improved its service since last year. More than 73% of Talk Talk customers surveyed in a poll conducted by analysts Point Topic, said they planned to retain their broadband service.

A spokesman for Talk Talk said: “Although I can’t say everything is perfect, I am confident that we have made huge improvements to our service.”

The firm has also been accused of using bully-boy tactics to poach customers from rivals. Plus Net, which provides broadband services through BT exchanges, claims Talk Talk has transferred more than 1,000 people without their consent.

They had asked for their home phone to be moved from BT to Talk Talk, but had not requested their broadband be switched – yet Carphone did so anyway.

Once transferred, customers are locked into an 18-month contract with Talk Talk even though they have to continue paying their previous broadband provider. They can switch back only if they pay Talk Talk a £70 cessation fee and the reconnection could take up to three weeks.

Talk Talk said: “Whether it’s through a systems or human error, we can’t say it never happens, but it’s not something we set out to do. It’s not seen as an ongoing problem at anywhere near the levels being bandied about.”

MANAGER’S UNWANTED UPGRADE

PAUL CARROLL, 48, is a health-service manager living in Wigan.

He has been with Talk Talk for the past 12 months but says he is fed up with its service.

His problems started when he was cold-called by a Talk Talk representative offering to upgrade him to a different phone service.

Despite asking not to be upgraded, he found that he had been. ‘I was shocked because I made it clear that I did not want to change. What made things worse was that I was without my internet service while the change took place.’

He says he has had numerous other problems, both with his phone and internet service, but getting someone to help is not easy.

‘Every time I try to get hold of someone, I have to wait on the line for almost an hour,’ he said.