Vodafone UK Bumps Home Broadband Contracts to 24 Months
Vodafone UK will today join some of the other major ISPs (e.g. BT) by increasing the minimum contract term of their “superfast” FTTC broadband and phone packages from 18 to 24 months. At the same time they’ll also discount the Superfast 1 (35Mbps) package to be priced the same as Superfast 2 (63Mbps) from £20.95 a month.
Generally we tend to advise consumers against adopting such long contract terms as it can easily result in you becoming trapped if problems occur. On the other hand you do still benefit from locking in any discounts for a much longer period of time, which might have some benefits during the current crisis.
At the time of writing we’ve only been told that this change will apply to their Openreach based “superfast” Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) packages, while their Cityfibre (FTTH) based Gigafast Broadband services still use the 18 month term. However we will double check this later today to see if their Gigafast packages have also adopted a different contract length and update again if they have.
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In separate news, Vodafone has announced that they will begin rolling out Wi-Fi Calling for their remaining customers (some 80% have already been enabled for it). As before, you’ll need an eligible smartphone in order to benefit from this feature.
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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Bloody 24 months – wish all ISPs banned 2 years contract by ofcom.
Presumably this only affects new contracts, as any change to existing contacts would surely enable the OFCOM option for customers to move ..?
Yes that’s the normal way of things.
Vodafone are really choosing a bad time to roll out unpopular measures, aren’t they?
I told them to f* off on the last price increase and signed with Zen for 12months.
Zen is nice in theory, until you have a sudden need to leave. They insist you pay the full contract price, no discount. Even though you will no longer be receiving the service.
Virgin media at least discounts the early termination fee.
For Mark Jackson: Regarding the Wifi Calling, do you have any more details on this news? For instance, my mobile is on a business account and currently not enabled. Are business accounts part of the roll-out?
https://newscentre.vodafone.co.uk/news/vodafone-extends-wi-fi-calling-to-all-pay-monthly-customers/
It’s BT. They have led the way showing they can get away with 24 months. I remember when dial up was purchased monthly and twelve month contracts seemed outlandish. I don’t like it.
Tricky one this, Long tie in periods can enable businesses to offer better pricing as they have a reliable income stream to plan alongside, But in the current market of ever changing speeds, allowances and add on services 24 month contracts don’t really sit well with Ofcoms competition and customer fairness mantra.
As with everything though, people will just sign up and accept it and it will become the norm, thats what we do, then moan about it.
That’s a pain. I was planning to switch to Vodafone in June so I could take advantage of their discount if you can’t hit 25mbps (I can’t) but no way will I be stuck in a 24 month contract when someone could stick fibre in at any point. 18 months feels long enough…
I can’t pair my printer with my router & I can’t
find a WPS button to go through the process
My Router is THG 3000 has any one else had any problems