BBC One Rip Off Britain TV Show to Tackle KCOM Woes in Hull UK

The BBC One consumer rights TV show, Rip Off Britain, looks set to take KCOM’s broadband and phone network in Hull (East Yorkshire) to task when it returns for a new series from 11th June 2018. The telecoms provider could face criticism of its prices, customer service and monopoly position in the local market.

At present Ofcom has ruled that KCOM continues to hold a position of Significant Market Power (SMP) in the Hull area, where their network has dominated the local market for many years via a mix of copper line phone, ADSL, FTTC and now “full fibre” FTTP based broadband connection technologies.

Naturally many locals often get upset about the lack of alternative fixed line choices in the local market (there are some but coverage is very limited) and none of the major ISPs have adopted KCOMs limited wholesale solutions (partly because they don’t do LLU or VULA FTTC etc.). However Ofcom has previously found it difficult to take more decisive action, not least because KCOM is a significant financial contributor and major employer in the Hull area (details); they don’t want to ruin the local economy.

On top of that KCOM is busy investing £85 million to ensure that 100% of their network area can access their Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology by March 2019 (around 200,000+ premises), which will admittedly still include a small amount of 75Mbps capable FTTC (roughly 4% of coverage).

The above is an advantage that few other UK areas enjoy, but naturally KCOM will also want a fair return on that investment, ideally before Ofcom swings any regulatory hammers. Rocking the boat too much at this stage is risky.

A Spokesperson for KCOM said:

“We have been contacted by the Rip Off Britain team and provided them with some facts about the broadband market and provision in Hull and East Yorkshire. We look forward to seeing a balanced show which recognises Hull and East Yorkshire as one of the fastest and best connected ultrafast broadband regions in the UK and indeed the world.”

However it’s clear that many locals may still be dissatisfied. A recent poll conducted by the Hull Daily Mail, which collected 34,000+ responses, found that only 5% of respondents were “happy” with their KCOM service. This seems to be a little out of whack with reality (we don’t see that many gripes against KCOM) but then it could just be reflecting general frustration with the aforementioned lack of choice.

Meanwhile Ofcom has yet to report on the final outcome of their on-going Wholesale Broadband Access (WBA) market review, which was due to be published earlier this year alongside their other reviews but is instead continuing to drag on (see details). As part of that the regulator proposed to examine the following issues.

Summary of Ofcom’s Plan for KCOM in Hull

Our proposals seek to achieve the following outcomes:

* Addressing the potential competition concerns we have identified, namely KCOM refusing to supply wholesale services, unduly discriminating in favour of its own retail operations or other selected telecoms providers and charging excessive wholesale charges;

* Ensuring that other telecoms providers can obtain the wholesale products they require at fair and reasonable prices from KCOM to compete effectively in retail broadband services, with a transparent process for telecoms providers to use if those products are not yet available;

* Greater transparency and accountability in relation to requests for new wholesale services and the functioning of the process by which such requests are submitted and considered by KCOM; and

* Greater transparency in relation to KCOM’s costs for supplying wholesale services, to ensure that it is complying with its regulatory obligations.

At the same time KCOM are already gearing up to be the first to retire their old copper line network in the UK, which could complicate Ofcom’s work. On the other hand the regulator has already ruled out copper Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), except Sub-Loop Unbundling (SLU), and they want KCOM to “provide fibre network access on reasonable request,” while adopting “fair and reasonable prices” at wholesale.

We suspect that ‘Rip Off Britain’ will, whenever the relevant episode actually airs (we don’t know yet), do their usual thing and merely skirt around some of these more complicated issues.