Pure Broadband Offers Alternative Way to Get KCOM’s £25 Deal
Earlier this week Hull-based ISP KCOM launched a cheap £25 for 30Mbps offer (here) to help entice new customers on to their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Now Pure Broadband, which uses the same network, is giving existing users a way to get the same deal.
Pure are one of a small number of less familiar UK ISPs that make use of KCOM’s limited wholesale solutions in order to sell products on their “full fibre” network. As a result they’re also able to make a virtually identical offer to the incumbent’s promotion.
In other words, while KCOM’s unlimited 30Mbps for £25 (normally £40) per month (for 12 months of service) deal is only available to new customers, then existing subscribers could still swap to Pure Broadband and enjoy the same benefits (inc. free router and installation).
The main catch here is that Pure haven’t yet been allowed to resell he same discount into KCOM’s latest £100m network expansion areas (further outside of Hull). Cheeky.
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 and Linkedin.
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Honestly, in 2020 is 30mb acceptable for £25 a month? Does not seem like a brilliant deal to me when you consider this is over fibre, especially when most folks could get twice that over 4g pretty easily at around the same price.
It’s not exactly jaw-dropping value but it’s reasonable.
Hull is a somewhat different market to the rest of the UK.
You are right, 30mb is not acceptable, especially when you consider how low it is for FTTP. There are no technological limitations to FTTP, so there aren’t any excuses to offer FTTP packages at this low speed.
I pay £21.95 for 80/20Mbps FTTC to TalkTalk and now, that I consider a good deal! If FTTP came to my area and offered poor and unreasonable prices to the ratio of the speeds that they provide, that will definitely not convince me to switch and I think everyone will agree with me on that.
People who already have FTTC will only switch to an FTTP service like this in 2 case scenarios, either they can’t get 30Mbps due to a very long distance to cabinet (which is very rare) or if the service is poor that causes connection drops making it less reliable.
And to actually have the audacity to later charge £40 for 30Mbps is shameful. They will lose customers in the eventuality unless the area they are serving has no FTTC.
@Rahul – KCOM is basically the only provider in most of the areas they serve. Their prices are very high. It’s not in line with the rest of the UK market because they don’t have to compete – and why would they. Whatever price they’re charging is what everyone is going to pay, anyway. Their internet service is very good and they skipped all the crap of FTTC as it was ADSL and then straight to FTTP.
@Tom: And quite clearly they are taking advantage of the situation!
When you look at other altnet providers like Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, etc in urban areas like London where they serve mostly big block of flats their prices are competitive because they know that most of the areas they serve already have FTTC.
So they can’t exploit or take much of an advantage because the customers are simply going to stick to FTTC. And aside of the 80Mbps/20Mbps limitation, FTTC is not a crap service like ADSL. It is much more reliable to the point where most people will not notice much of a difference between an 80/20 FTTP package vs 80/20 FTTC unless those on FTTC aren’t achieving those sync speeds and reliability.
I’m all for skipping FTTC and ADSL altogether for FTTP. But telecom providers shouldn’t take advantage of the helplessness of those having no access to cheaper alternatives.
We see this example in newly built homes that have FTTP only. Any FTTP provider that uses Openreach network for the same 80/20 Mbps package costs £5-10 more on average compared to the same package on FTTC. There’s no justification for that considering the upload and download speeds aren’t even symmetrical.
Its the best deal that has ever being offered to the people of east yorkshire.kCOMS USUAL PRICE IS £40.00 per month for a 30meg ftth .This is an offer which will allow around 30,000 people who are now out of contract to move to purebroadband and save a minimum of £180 per year PS. BT VIRGIN SKY do not operate in this area
Well said Rahul, its like these ISP’s know there isn’t anyone offering better, so shape a service to offer the bare minimum for a slip cheaper than elsewhere. This way they can maximise both their profits and the number of users on their network.
So much for fibre being the panacea of monopoly busting eh!
And this is why we need to be wary of altnet FTTP providers that do not share their network with other ISPs.
Because while in the short term altnet providers like Hyperoptic, G.Network, Community Fibre, Virgin Media, etc provide a much cheaper deal than Openreach FTTP e.g. In the long term they may trap you in a price hike situation especially in areas where there isn’t FTTC or another altnet FTTP provider.
Openreach FTTP I believe is a better choice in the long term, because with a larger number of providers on offer, it will be more difficult for ISPs to exploit the monopoly vs an Altnet provider being the only option.
Gigaclear is a similar rip-off to Pure Broadband where they are a monopoly to rural areas that have no FTTC. They are also offering 30Mbps FTTP but at £29.25 yet for a few pounds more at £36.75 they offer 300Mbps! Where is the logic?
And this is also another reason why it is extremely rare for areas that have Openreach FTTC to also get upgraded with FTTP from Openreach because they know that people are going to stick to FTTC as the packages will be cheaper and won’t make the switch.
Only case scenario from my observation is if the FTTC is providing very poor speeds to that given area, only then Openreach deploy FTTP knowing that the cheaper FTTC deal is of no use due to poorer speeds. That way people have no choice but to choose the more expensive FTTP option for now until in future when the prices drop.
This is why at the same time I’m not too jealous from newly built homes with FTTP only because these residents will be stuck with more expensive and limited number of packages to choose from for the short term.