COVID-19 – UK ISPs Being Urged to Offer Free Broadband

The Government is understood to be in “very early talks” with UK internet access providers over how they could better support people during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis, which has resulted in many people and families needing to work from and stay at home. One option could be to offer free broadband.

At present some providers, such as KCOM and BT, already have special social tariffs for those on state benefits, which are cheaper but also slower and often only come with very meagre data allowances (e.g. 15GB on BT Basic with a 10Mbps average speed [ADSL2+] for £9.95 a month with line rental). For other providers the social tariff may also only cover a phone service, although most other ISPs don’t offer such a tariff at all.

However the BBC reports that the UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) is in early talks with the Government about the possibility of introducing additional support measures during the COVID-19 outbreak, which at least one head teacher has suggested could ideally include giving consumers free broadband. But it is presently unclear what has actually been discussed with ISPs.

Implementing free access across such a large and diverse array of broadband ISPs, connection types and packages would be difficult, especially for smaller providers that may struggle to survive, but is possible. Nevertheless ISPs will no doubt argue that it may be unsustainable for them to offer a free service for very long, particularly if their suppliers (e.g. Openreach, BTWholesale etc.) still continue to charge them.

A Spokesperson for the ISPA said:

“Things are naturally developing extremely quickly at the moment, and ISPA plans to seek further guidance from government on these issues so that customers can remain connected to the internet during these unprecedented times.”

Realistically it seems unlikely that the Government would mandate that every ISP offer free broadband for all (too many providers would be at risk of collapse) and thus any agreement seems almost certain to be voluntary, most likely focusing upon the largest providers.

On the other hand such measures could be more strategically targeted at vulnerable groups, such as those covered by the aforementioned social tariffs (e.g. unemployed people or those in receipt of other essential state benefits), and will probably be time limited until COVID-19 is resolved. But that is merely speculation on our part and it could also just result in a series of general discounts or included extras being offered.

We note that some providers, such as Virgin Mobile (Virgin Media) and Sky (Sky Broadband), have already provided customers with a few free extras and allowance boosts – mostly related to voice calls and mobile rather than broadband – to help them (here and here). Judging by today’s news, we should expect further changes to follow.

Finally, some people will probably recall that the UK Labour Party attracted a lot of criticism last year for their populist idea of nationalising the entire broadband industry and giving everybody free full fibre access (here and here). But that was radically different from what is being discussed above and would have taken years to implement (not to mention causing huge industry disruption etc.).