Broadband customers pay £6 million a year contacting their supplier's call centre, a new study has found.
Research from uSwitch.com revealed that 16 million calls are made to these helplines each year, which represents almost 2,000 an hour.
The average call lasts 17 minutes, of which six minutes are spent on hold, the study showed.
However, the cost of the average call varies from company to company, with BT's being free, while those for providers such as AOL, Orange and Tiscali stood at 90p or more.
Jason Glynn, uSwitch.com's communications expert, said that it is "disheartening" that so many companies charge consumers for contacting their technical support call centres.
He commented: "In such a competitive arena it's surprising that they haven't wised up to the fact that customers expect more from their broadband service than a cheap deal."
In other news, authorities in Finland have passed plans to make access to broadband a legal right, which could increase the number of people in the country using online telecoms services such as VoIP.
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