Survey Claims Forgetfulness Causes Brits to Miss £76.6m in Broadband Savings
A new study by comparison site Go.Compare, which used data gathered from the ONS, internal data and a YouGov survey of 2,000 UK adults in May 2025, has claimed that over 77% of broadband users don’t switch ISPs as regularly as would be ideal to maximise their savings. Plus, of those users, 6% don’t switch more often because they forget to look for a better deal.
The survey thus claims that many UK households could be missing out on an average saving of up to £58 on their yearly broadband bill, provided they switched to the cheapest deal available for the same speeds. This is very roughly said to equate to £76.6 million worth of savings being “up for grabs nationwide“.
The survey also noted that women were twice as likely to forget to look out for cheaper broadband deals (i.e. 8% of women who don’t switch regularly gave forgetfulness as a reason, compared to 4% of men). Age is another factor, with 1 in 10 of those aged under-35 who don’t switch regularly stating that forgetfulness was the reason why, which compares with 4% of over-54s.
Advertisement
Additional Survey Highlights
➤ 39% said convenience was the most common reason for not changing providers more often (i.e. it’s easier to keep their current ISP), despite Ofcom’s new One Touch Switching process making it a lot easier.
➤ 37% said they won’t switch if their current provider has been highly reliable.
➤ 16% admitted they didn’t think they’d be able to find a cheaper deal.
➤ 15% said their provider delivers good customer service or that their package includes a TV deal they want to keep.
➤ 22% said they usually switch when their provider increases prices, while 1 in 10 said they would do so if their service becomes too unreliable and 2% said they would switch if their provider starts slowing their speeds.
Naturally, it’s important to take opinion surveys like this with a big pinch of salt (i.e. small sample sizes and limited questioning), although it does on the flip side help to highlight that not all consumers are as focused on making savings as comparison sites like Go.Compare (with a big vested interest) would perhaps like us to believe.
Clearly a history of good reliability, service and convenience remain big factors in switching decisions too, which is fair enough. At the end of the day, if you’re happy with your current ISP then it may be better to trying haggling for a lower price (more likely to work with bigger ISPs than smaller ones) – Retentions Tips. The best time to haggle is usually around the end of your contract, or following a mid-contract price hike, but it never hurts to ask and the worse they can do is say no.
However, it’s important to underline that not all ISPs are the same. Some adopt fairly standard pricing and avoid discounts, which means that haggling won’t get you very far because both new and existing customers will already be paying the same or a similar amount. But most people tend to use larger ISPs, where first term discounts are much more common, and this can result in a wide cost difference between new and old subscribers.
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.
« Virgin Media O2 to Donate 1,200 Pre-Owned Smartphones in Scotland
Add to that the fear factor of a switch going wrong and being left without internet.
You mean like a Virgin Media switch that’s reported on their customer forums a fair bit 😉
It was not really fear for me, not sure what you would call it, I was a bit worried that I may lose broadband if anything went wrong, A new network, which I knew very little about, a bloke running it that sold off the last network he started up, a company that was getting money to prop them up from god knows who.
So yes, that was one of the reason I was going to play safe, stay with who I was with or go for another provider on FTTC, if i could get a decent price.
I can be stubborn and I know that, people don’t have to tell me and I can get stuck in a rut and be fine with the way things are.
I am glad I came to my senses and decided to give another network a chance. I suppose being able to keep both running for a month helped.
I certainly would do the same thing again if I changed network again, not that I am planning to.
I would think some people don’t change because they don’t understand the need to change, FTTC to FTTP for example. Some forgetting when their contract is up also. If it’s not broke why fix it might be another attitude. Price would also be a big factor for change of ISP.
Another of those surveys that indicate the creator knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. I’ve had the same ISP for over a decade and they cost more than the much lower quality competition. What I get is substantially more valuable than the budget alternative (static IPv4 and IPv6, no packet loss, dodgy routing or CGNAT etc).
I wonder if ‘Go Compare’ also expect everyone to eat microwave pizza every day as it’s cheaper than the alternatives.
What you are forgetting that you are one of very few people that requires static IPs, and is bothered about CGNAT. Packet lost is pretty minimal on most services unless there is a problem, I don’t know about dodgy routing, let’s just say that in the 9 years I was with Plusnet, if it happened, it never affected me.
Compare sites go for the majority of people, and the majority of people want a service that works and at a good price.
I did think about static IP at some point, I can get one where I am, but if i really needed to get to my home stuff i can use dynamic DNS service, I can get to my NAS using a service supplied by the company who makes my NAS, but I don’t use it that often anyway.
You are one of these niche consumers and like me, you are capable of looking for an ISP without compare services like Go compare.