Historical review: Post Office Broadband closed to new customers in 2021. Every figure on this page is retrospective.
Retrospective review, closed brand
Post Office Broadband reviews
An honest retrospective on the Post Office Broadband customer experience: historical Trustpilot scores, Ofcom complaints data, Which? customer survey results, the praise themes, the complaint themes, and Selectra’s online-presence audit of the channels the brand actually used.
Historical score
2.4/ 5
Sample
~1,800 reviews
Final trading year, 2021
Reviewed
19 May 2026
Platform by platform
What every historical score actually meant
All scores below are retrospective, drawn from the years Post Office Broadband was still trading. The brand no longer accepts reviews, but the figures are useful context for anyone whose service began life under the Post Office name.
Trustpilot, postoffice.co.uk (broadband)
2.4/ 5
~1,800 reviews (final year)
Mostly negative
In its final trading year, the broadband-specific reviews on the Post Office Trustpilot profile averaged 2.4 out of 5. The recurring positive theme was the simple, no-upsell experience and friendly call-centre staff. The recurring negative themes were slow speeds compared with FTTC competitors, long-running connection drop-outs and dragged-out problem resolution. The score had been falling consistently since around 2018, when Full Fibre rivals began advertising heavily.
During its later trading years, Post Office Broadband sat consistently above the industry average for Ofcom broadband complaints per 100,000 customers, in the same bracket as TalkTalk (its wholesale provider). The main complaint categories were faults, service problems and difficulty cancelling. Post Office no longer appears in Ofcom’s tables after the 2021 Shell Energy acquisition.
Which? graded Post Office Broadband as a mid-table value pick before its closure. Customers gave it acceptable marks on cost and bill clarity, but consistently lower marks on connection reliability and speed. It was never a Which? Recommended Provider in the broadband category. The "fair value for money" rating was the strongest positive across multiple yearly waves.
Forum sentiment on MSE was split. One camp valued Post Office Broadband for being a quiet, drama-free reseller with predictable monthly bills, ideal for older or non-tech-savvy users. The other camp was frustrated by the lack of Full Fibre and the inability to renew at competitive prices once the introductory deal ended. Post almost no positive forum threads have been created since the 2021 sale.
Reviews.io collected a much smaller pool of Post Office Broadband reviews than Trustpilot. Tone broadly mirrored the Trustpilot picture, weighted toward customer-service complaints. Useful only as a sanity check on the larger Trustpilot pool.
Aggregating the platforms above with its product positioning, Selectra grades Post Office Broadband 3.0 out of 5 as a historical product. It was a fair budget ADSL and FTTC line for a specific kind of customer (light usage, trust-driven brand choice, no need for top speeds) but the lack of Full Fibre and the rising customer-service complaints made the brand uncompetitive once the UK market shifted decisively to fibre after 2019.
What customers most often praised and complained about
Synthesising thousands of reviews from the brand’s active years, the same four positive and four negative themes come up over and over.
What people praised most
Trust of the Post Office brand
For older customers in particular, the Post Office name carried real weight. Many sign-ups came from people who wanted a brand they recognised from the high street rather than an unknown internet-only ISP.
Simple, single-package pricing
No bundle theatre, no TV add-ons, no mobile cross-sells. The product line had three tiers and a paper bill option, which suited households that wanted broadband and nothing else.
Fair budget pricing on entry tiers
The headline price was usually cheaper than BT, Sky and Virgin Media at the same speed tier. For an 11 to 38 Mbps line, Post Office was competitive against TalkTalk and Plusnet.
Polite, UK-based call centre
When customers did get through, agents were generally well-rated for politeness and clear English. The pain point was getting through, not the conversation itself.
What people complained about most
Slow speeds vs the new fibre ISPs
Once Full Fibre rolled out at scale from 2019 onward, the 38 to 67 Mbps FTTC top tier started to look slow. Households doing 4K streaming or video calling noticed it first.
Multiple migrations and confusion
Customers were moved from BT to TalkTalk wholesale, then sold to Shell Energy, then migrated to TalkTalk retail. Each transition created billing confusion and account-portal changes.
Long phone waits later in the brand life
As Post Office cut investment in the broadband business in preparation for the sale, call queues grew and complaint resolution slowed visibly in the 2019 to 2021 window.
Renewal pricing was uncompetitive
Like most legacy ISPs, the out-of-contract price was noticeably above the new-customer price. Customers who did not call to renegotiate often paid 20 to 30% more than they should.
Selectra audit (historical)
Post Office Broadband’s online presence, channel by channel
An energy-expert online-presence audit, looking at how the brand actually communicated with customers outside the phone line during its trading years.
Channel
Selectra verdict
Detail
Website (postoffice.co.uk/broadband)
OK
Clean and clear, but did not invest heavily in postcode-checker UX or speed-test tools compared with BT or Sky. Now redirects to the main Post Office site, no broadband landing.
Account portal
Weak
The MyAccount area was functional but slow, and the migration to Shell Energy webmail then TalkTalk Mail broke logins for many users in transition.
Mobile app
Weak
No dedicated broadband app at the brand level. Customers used the web portal on mobile, which was workable but not designed for it.
Social customer service
Mid
Post Office’s X (Twitter) and Facebook accounts answered broadband questions during business hours but were mainly used for retail issues. Less responsive than dedicated ISP support handles.
Live chat
OK
Available on the broadband pages during business hours during the brand’s active years. Useful for billing questions, less so for connection faults.
Branch counter help
Strong (legacy)
Until 2021, customers could walk into a Post Office branch for broadband help. After the sale, branch staff lost broadband-account access. This was the brand’s most distinctive channel and was switched off completely.
Selectra retrospective verdict
Aggregated from all platforms above
Post Office Broadband earns a retrospective 3.0 out of 5 from Selectra. It was a fair budget ADSL and FTTC line for nearly two decades, with a brand that older households genuinely trusted. The package line-up was simple, bills were predictable and call-centre staff were generally polite when you got through. Those are real strengths that the Trustpilot self-selection effect tends to underweight.
The honest weaknesses are also real: no Full Fibre product, declining customer service in the final years, multiple migrations that confused customers, and a renewal pricing model that punished loyalty. By 2021, Post Office Limited had made the right call commercially, selling to Shell Energy let it exit a market it could no longer compete in without major investment. For former customers, the inheritance is now a TalkTalk account on the same wholesale network. For new customers in 2026, Plusnet is the most authentic spiritual successor.
Pros (historical)
Trusted high-street brand, friendly for older customers.
Simple three-tier package line-up, no aggressive upsells.
Competitive entry pricing on ADSL and entry FTTC.
Polite UK-based call centre, no offshore handover.
Cons (historical)
No Full Fibre tier ever launched, max speed 67 Mbps.
Above-average Ofcom complaints rate in final years.
Three brand migrations in five years confused customers.
Renewal pricing punished loyal customers who did not haggle.
FAQ
Post Office Broadband reviews, your questions answered
How was Post Office Broadband actually rated by customers?
By the end of its trading life, the broadband-only Trustpilot score was around 2.4 out of 5, with most complaints centred on slow FTTC speeds, drop-outs and difficult cancellation. Which? graded the brand mid-table and Ofcom complaints data placed it above the industry average. The strongest positive theme across every platform was the simple, trust-driven brand experience for non-tech-savvy customers.
Why did Trustpilot scores fall so much in the last few years?
Two reasons. First, the broadband market moved decisively to Full Fibre from 2019 onward and Post Office never had a Full Fibre product, so customers used to neighbour’s 500 Mbps lines started reviewing the 38 to 67 Mbps tier harshly. Second, Post Office Limited reduced investment in the broadband business while preparing for sale, which lengthened call queues and slowed complaint resolution. The two effects compounded.
Are there any positive things to say about Post Office Broadband?
Yes. For its target customer (older, light-usage, trust-driven brand choice) it was a fair, no-drama budget ISP for nearly two decades. The package line-up was simple, the bills were predictable, the call-centre staff were generally polite and the entry price was competitive against BT and Sky at the same FTTC speed. The brand left a satisfied long-tail of older customers, even if the public reviews skew negative.
Is Selectra’s retrospective view too generous?
We score it 3.0 / 5 as a historical product, which is half a star above the final Trustpilot pool. The reason is that Trustpilot self-selection pulls toward the unhappy end, and the Post Office customer base contained a long tail of older households who were satisfied but did not write online reviews. A fair score has to account for both.
If I want a "modern Post Office Broadband", what should I choose?
The closest live match in 2026 is Plusnet. Same Openreach wholesale line, simple no-frills packaging, competitive entry pricing and one of the lowest complaint rates in Ofcom’s data. If you want to stay within the brand chain, you are already with TalkTalk, which now offers a full-fibre product the Post Office never could.
Post Office Broadband is closed
Find a live UK broadband provider
If you came here to sign up, Post Office Broadband no longer takes new customers. Compare the live alternatives most often picked by former Post Office customers.
