Ofcom has published its latest complaints data, revealing the telecoms and pay TV providers that it receives the most complaints about. This report only includes complaints that have been made directly to Ofcom, so it differs from the recent customer service survey that contacted consumers and asked for their feedback.

The quarterly report, which covers July to September 2012, is the regulator’s seventh such publication.

Mark Bridge writes:

We started last week with a 20th birthday party for the SMS text message, which was first used as an alternative Christmas card by Neil Papworth in 1992. Since then, mobile data has been transformed from the familiar dit-dit-dit dah-dah dit-dit-dit of Nokia phones to non-stop internet connectivity on smart devices.

Ofcom’s latest quarterly report into the customer service provided by landline, broadband, mobile phone and pay TV companies shows a significant change in the mobile sector.

Overall, thousands of consumers who’d contacted their provider between July and September 2012 were asked to rate the customer service they’d received. 67% of mobile phone users were satisfied with their network’s customer service, compared with 62% of fixed broadband users, 64% of landline customers and 69% of pay TV subscribers.

Mark Bridge writes:

As Christmas approaches, I thought I’d offer a few tips for anyone who’s working in mobile retailing and wants to get a little more out of their job. If you’re new to the mobile industry - or to selling mobile phones - they’ll provide a useful starting point.

O2 UK has revealed its plans for dealing with the aftermath of last week’s UK network outage that saw millions of customers without mobile service for several hours.

The problems came just three months after another period of widespread disruption.