Five UK ISPs in Alliance to Fight for Better Service and Lower Prices

A group of five independent UK broadband ISPs – Gigabit Networks, Triangle Networks, Air Broadband, Highnet and Trunk Networks – have formed a new consortium called the ‘Rebel Alliance‘ (Lucasfilm and Star Wars might have words), which appears to be demanding better service levels and lower prices.

The companies involved are all reflective of a “new generation ISPs” who are connecting families to the new gigabit-speed broadband networks that are being installed across the country. According to the announcement, the alliance states that “more should be done to increase services levels and lower costs to avoid widening the country’s digital divide.”

The alliance goes on to highlight all of the recent annual price hikes from major broadband ISPs, some of which went up to 9.3% and next year could be much worse. In terms of what the consortium actually wants to see, they’re demanding “greater support for those struggling with essential household bills” and calling for social tariffs to be “better advertised” (awareness is one of the biggest problems).

In addition, they’re also calling on the infrastructure providers who lay fibre cabling (e.g. Openreach, VMO2, CityFibre etc.) to demonstrate “leadership and empathy“, not least by “making a greater financial contribution towards ensuring that affordable social internet pricing is made available to as many people as possible.”

David Yates, CEO of Gigabit Networks and Founding member of the Alliance, said:

“The ability to connect to the Internet is no longer a luxury but a necessity, simply because so many essential services, including applying for Universal Credit itself, take place online.

Despite this, it seems like our industry still views being able to access fast and reliable internet as a consumer choice, with the quality of the internet you receive connected to your willingness and ability to pay.

At a time of rising household costs across the board, we in the Rebel Alliance think that this is totally unacceptable and it is incumbent on the entire industry, which includes the infrastructure firms, to work together to increase internet affordability and make social tariffs readily available across the board to those who are eligible for them.”

The alliance appears to be taking a refreshingly pro-consumer stance above, albeit by adopting a position that is mostly sound bites and quite limited in substance. For example, social tariffs should be better advertised and ISPs could do more to help those who may be struggling to pay their bills. But at the same time, the supporting ISPs haven’t said specifically what should be done and they don’t appear to have launched social tariffs of their own.

Most retail ISPs would probably also agree with the call for infrastructure providers to help contribute to the creation of social tariffs. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that such things are rarely free and may result in higher wholesale prices in other areas to compensate.

In addition, the desire for greater affordability doesn’t always mix well with the desire for greater service quality, or, for that matter, the need for infrastructure providers to gain a viable return on the huge investment being made to deploy full fibre networks. However, many of the alternative networks that we see are already pricing aggressively in order to steal customers away from more established players.

UPDATE 3:45pm

On the question of why the ISPs haven’t launched social tariffs, David has kindly provided a bit of extra context: “All of the local altnets in the Alliance have had requests for full-fibre products for social housing residents and many have tried to launch them but even when they have discounted products as far as they can, they can’t get to a price point that is acceptable to residents. In order to meet the gap they need the infrastructure players to step up so altnets in the Alliance – and elsewhere – can deliver a social housing product and include the digitally excluded.”