As dissatisfied customers begin to leave TalkTalk's broadband service, competition will hot up to claim their former customers, it has been predicted.

Customers are expected to leave TalkTalk in response to its poor standard of customer support, which was flagged up by a Uswitch.com poll that recently placed the firm bottom for overall customer service, fairinvestment.com reports.

According to the poll, nearly a third of the firm's subscribers are unhappy with the customer support they have received.

Steve Weller, head of communications at Uswitch.com, said: "TalkTalk’s CEO was famously quoted as saying, 'if in a year’s time it [customer service] is still as bad then people will just write us off'. It will be interesting to see how many will."

TalkTalk's problems have been attributed to difficulties in keeping up with demand for its free broadband service - making it the first UK ISP to do this.

While 348,000 users who signed up to the service within two months of its launch, around 200,000 of these experienced subsequent connection delays and interruptions.