ISP Vodafone UK Offers Free Business Broadband During 2021
Mobile operator and ISP Vodafone UK has launched a new promotion to help small businesses (1 – 50 employees) get through the COVID-19 crisis, which will give new customers (and existing ones who are eligible for an upgrade) 12 months’ of free broadband service on a 36 month minimum term. But only on FTTC.
The catch to all this is that they’re only making the offer available via their Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) based Superfast Packages (average download speed of 35Mbps or 63Mbps) on Openreach’s platform and in order to get this you’ll need to sign-up before 28th February 2021. The new deal is similar to the 6 months free promotion, which they ran last spring on the same plans.
The two associated packages normally cost £20.83 +vat and £25 +vat respectively per month (or c.£1.6 less when taken with an existing Vodafone mobile plan) and that includes unlimited usage, a 36-month contract term, a wireless router and a static IP address. Plus there’s a “standard installation charge of £20” (one-off) for each purchase.
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Sadly, Vodafone has not extended this offer to any of their FTTP based Gigafast Broadband packages, but that would probably be asking a bit too much.
Anne Sheehan, Business Director of Vodafone UK, said:
“The message to small businesses is clear: we’re here to help. Businesses need to be running as efficiently as possible in 2021 – that means getting online, using the best digital tools, getting the best business advice, and spending as little money as possible. It’s great to see how businesses adapted throughout last year, and we’re here to help more do the same in 2021.”
The new promotion does make their business FTTC plans incredibly cheap over the term of the contract, although it also locks you in for a 36-month term and that’s pretty extreme for a domestic grade FTTC broadband service, even one aimed at smaller businesses. A Service Level Guarantee (SLA) might normally help to mitigate such concerns, but none is present.
To continue to support small businesses on their digital journey, Vodafone has also set up the V-Hub small business digital support platform offering detailed guides on key aspects of operating in a more digitalised world and free one to one support with a business adviser. The platform covers topics such as website creation, digital marketing, remote working and cyber security.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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How much does it cost in the remaining 24 months?
Returns to the standard price, as stated above in the third paragraph.
oh sorry – it didn’t say that specifically, just that the packages “normally cost…”.
So it definitely goes back to £20.83 +vat /£25 +vat after 12 months?
Why would a business choose Vodafone FTTC with no IPv6?
Seems like they had been testing IPv6 (on the live network) at one point but it was unreliable and kept disappearing. There were posts on the forums of people picking up prefixes via DHCPv6, but kept breaking regularly.
I assume current world events delayed the roll out as Spring 2020 was quoted by ISPreview from their original statement last year I believe.
you mean like Virgin media business with no IPv6 too ?
The thing about ipv6 95% user and even business don’t really care about it.
Sure it’s a plus having it but it’s like it’s a must have thing.
I means it’s not like it’s a must have thing.
If they were really wanting to help businesses they would offer a 12 month contract at a much reduced rate with no strings rather than tie people into 3 years when they might not have a business left after this latest round of lockdowns! This smacks of cynical marketing and trying to cash in on some peoples desperation. Also it’s not really going to help many existing businesses not already with Vodafone as most will already be locked into a contract and very few of those are going to come up for renewal before expiry of the offer. So the promotion exists really to entice existing customers to lock themselves into Vodafone for another 3 years, just at the time where many will be wondering if they will have a business left in 6 months time let alone 3 years.
I agree – a lower cost 12 month term will be much more helpful for people in the current climate!
36 months LOL
VF marketing guys: hey, let’s tell them it’s free but tie them into 36 months and amortize the cost over those 3 years. They’ll think it’s a deal.
I pay £259 a month for 100/100 on a 36 month deal – I can go up to 500/500 or 1000/1000 they are the same price and only £400 a month that’s a bargain!
Anna is that from VF? that’s not bad. I was quoted £300 for 100/100 on 36 months by talktalk. It’s the same price for 12/24 but then they also want a large install fee which on 36 months they don’t.