BT Openreach Offer 5 Months Free FTTC for Slow Broadband Lines

Openreach has announced that they will soon give UK ISPs the ability to offer 5 months of free rental on their 40Mbps FTTC (VDSL2) based “fibre broadband” service, which will apply to customers who currently only receive sub-10Mbps speeds via their existing copper lines (e.g. ADSL).

At present more than half of the broadband connections in the United Kingdom still use old-style ADSL / ADSL2+ based broadband technology, which at best will struggle to deliver download speeds of up to around 20Mbps and many receive something considerably slower.

However a lot of people with related lines are now within reach of Openreach’s new and usually much faster FTTC (VDSL2) broadband network, although the extra cost of this service can sometimes discourage them from upgrading.

Openreach are now looking to at least partly address this by offering 5 months of free rental to those verified to be suffering from a sub-10Mbps line, which will apply to their 40Mbps (2Mbps upload) or 40Mbps (10Mbps upload) speed tiers.

Openreach Statement

This special offer enables CPs to regrade their existing copper customers, who are experiencing speeds of sub 10Mbps, to GEA-FTTC PCP Only 40/2 Mbps or 40/10 Mbps speed tiers.

We’re launching this special offer to support our CP customers in their efforts to stimulate fibre demand in the consumer marketplace.

CPs will be able to take advantage of the offer from Sunday 1 January 2017 until Friday 31 March 2017 inclusive, for all new GEA-FTTC orders received for regraded lines, of sub 10Mbps, during this period.

We note that this offer only applies to the PCP Only (Self-Installation) version of FTTC (most ISPs use this now), which usually also attracts a one-off installation fee of £49 +vat (or £32.53 if Openreach are able to start an already stopped FTTC line).

Interestingly Openreach states that, during the special offer period, the normal appointment availability Service Level Agreements (SLA) and its corresponding SLG will not apply to qualifying lines.

In terms of the wholesale cost, the 40/2Mbps tier typically costs ISPs £6.90 +vat per month and the 40/10Mbps option costs £7.40. So over five months there’s a reasonable saving to be had, although we must not forget that the ISP has its own costs (tax, profit margins, data capacity, extra services etc.) to add on top and so this may not translate the same to all ISPs.

Separately Openreach are continuing to trial a new 18Mbps profile for their FTTC service (here), which looks like a potentially more attractive option for moving existing ADSL customers over to modern FTTC / VDSL2 lines.