Connect Fibre Launch Try Before You Buy on FTTP Broadband
Network builder and UK ISP Connect Fibre (Fibre Assets), which aspires to cover 100,000 premises across the East of England with their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, has today launched a “revolutionary” Try Before You Buy offer, albeit only for homes in Sutton and Edwinstowe.
The promotion allows new customers in the two locations to experience full fibre broadband for 30 days, free of charge, as long as the installation is booked before the 31st of July 2023. At the end of the 30-day trial period, customers can choose to keep the full fibre connection for an agreed-upon price or opt-out with no further commitment. The customer can send the router back and the service will be disconnected.
However, there’s nothing particularly “revolutionary” about this kind of promotion, which has been adopted before by various ISPs and often in slightly different ways. The only disappointment is that they’re only offering it in two of their locations and for a limited period of time, rather than as a standard feature.
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Otherwise, residential packages tend to start from £25 per month for a symmetric speed 50Mbps plan (inc. free setup and a WiFi 6 router), which rises to £45 for their top 1000Mbps tier and a promise of “no mid-contract price increases“. Plus there’s a 50Mbps social tariff for those on state benefits at £20 per month.
The operator, which is being backed by an unspecified amount of funding from the Foresight Group (here), is currently rolling out a new open access (wholesale) full fibre network – using XGS-PON technology from ADTRAN – across a number of other locations in Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.
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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The limited area suggests a trial, and that’s probably very sensible, given the likely cash costs of a new connection which I guess around £150-200. Looking at the challenges of uptake faced by many altnets I think it’s to be applauded, although only time will tell if it will be success.
Let’s also not forget the legal 14 day cooling off period.
That’s not how the cooling off period works – it’s not designed to let you have a service installed and then cancel it, and most providers won’t book to do any installation work closer than 14 days after the date you order the service on.
The idea of the cooling off period is to give people time to change their mind on whether they want the service they ordered, not to trial it.
Cardiffman281 is correct. The 14 day cooling off period for services that are ordered remotely starts from the day after the contract is entered into, and what Jonny is missing is that the order may look like a contract (especially if a signed paper version), but in law that is only an agreement until it is fulfilled, for example by delivering physical goods, or activating a service. When it is fulfilled, that’s when there’s a contract. If you’re interested, Hall Ellis solicitors have an excellent and detailed explanation of contract law basics that run through what makes a contract and when it becomes binding.
Whether the intent was “try before you buy” is irrelevant, the simple fact is that under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 you’ve got 14 days after the service goes live.
I reference Virgin Media’s current Ts and Cs which certainly enable a full fortnight’s trial of its service (the operating term below being “latest”) and I would encourage all new customers to make full use of them as required :
“You have a statutory right to cancel an order for those services within the cooling off period, which is 14 days from the latest of:
1. the day after the delivery of the equipment;
2. the service start date; and
3. the day on which you received a copy of these terms and conditions in printed or PDF format.”
Your rights to cancel under the Consumer contracts act is 14 days PRIOR to the commencement of the service. Most ISP’s will have a clause in the contract that states if you wish the service to be provisioned in less than 14 days then you cannot cancel without penalty.
Bob that is exactly how the UK consumer act does not work. The 14 days start from the point that the contract starts – which when paying for a service like broadband would be when the service is up and running.
If things worked the way you claimed, no provider would do an installation until 14 days had passed from the time the order was taken, which would defeat the whole point of the act which was designed to give consumers the ability to validate a service that they had purchased.
You have fallen into a common misconception. The 14 days applies to goods. With service you cannot normally cancel ones provisioning has commenced. An ISP can off cause allow it if they wish in their T&C’s