John Lewis and Plusnet voted the UK's best broadband providers as BT, TalkTalk and Sky are shunted to the bottom of the league table 

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If you're looking to switch to one of the best broadband providers, it may be worth ditching the biggest companies and considering one of their smaller rivals, a new survey suggests.

John Lewis Broadband, Plusnet, Utility Warehouse and Zen Internet all came top of a broadband satisfaction survey voted for by Which? members.

Each received a score above 70 per cent, when rated for qualities including speed, reliability, value for money, customer service, technical support and clarity of bills.

By comparison, languishing at the bottom of the table were three of the UK's biggest providers – BT, Sky and TalkTalk.

Endless waits? Just one broadband provider in the survey received a rating of four out of five for speed - the rest were lower

Each received a customer score of below 50 per cent, with BT at the bottom of the pile scoring just 45 per cent.

Surprisingly just two providers received scores of four out of five for speed – Zen Internet and Virgin Media – the rest were all given lower scores.

Bottom of the pile was TalkTalk with two stars for speed – every other supplier received three.

Which? is campaigning for broadband providers to improve service and deliver the speeds that customers are promised.

The survey comes after another study last week revealed that some streets in the UK suffer broadband speeds that are 135 times slower than the UK's fastest.

Williamson Road in Romney Marsh, Kent suffers a dire average speed of 0.54Mps, which means it would take around 19 hours to download a two-hour HD film. A 20-song music album would take 49 minutes to download, the survey from uSwitch found.

At the other end of the spectrum, speeds are 135 times faster on Sandy Lane in Cannock, Staffordshire, where speeds average at a superfast 72.86Mbps.

Which? is calling on advertising watchdogs to tighten rules to ensure advertised broadband speeds more closely match the real experience of most customers.

League table: Which? members were asked to rate their broadband provider against a set of criteria

Providers are currently allowed to advertise broadband speeds that only ten per cent of customers actually receive.

It also believes households should be allowed to exit contracts early without penalty if they don't get the minimum speed estimated at any point in their contract.

Which? executive director, Richard Lloyd, said: 'Smaller suppliers are leaving larger rivals in their wake when it comes to the service they provide so we need to see the big players up their game. Ofcom is also currently reviewing this market and we now need it to identify how it plans to ensure broadband customers get a better deal.

'We've told the advertising watchdogs that companies need to be much clearer with their customers about the speeds they can expect. 

'However, three months on, we're still waiting for them to announce how they'll ensure adverts only show the speeds most customers actually receive.'