Vodafone UK Launch Broadband ISP Switching Campaign with £100 for Early Exits
Telecoms provider Vodafone UK will today launch “The Great British Telecoms Switch” campaign, which encourages those on Openreach’s wider fixed broadband and phone network – with different ISPs – to save money by switching to their service. New customers who take their top 900Mbps FTTP plan will also get up to £100 to cover any early exit fees.
The campaign highlights how “many UK consumers are unaware that BT, EE, Sky and Vodafone broadband all receive the same broadband technology, supplied by Openreach who run some of the nation’s broadband network. This lack of understanding means that an estimated 8 million BT customers are overpaying by over £200* a year for the same full fibre broadband also available with Vodafone.”
In fairness, price isn’t the only metric by which consumers judge a service and people will also be looking at other areas, such as support, speed, service quality, value added extras and so forth. Suffice to say, it can be very difficult to do a true apple to apple’s comparison, although Vodafone do have a reputation for delivering lower cost home broadband plans. The above price comparison also only looks at BT, while a lot of other ISPs use Openreach’s network and have similarly cheap plans.
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The provider may also be missing a trick above by failing to highlight how their Cityfibre based FTTP packages are also even cheaper than their Openreach based FTTC and FTTP ones. But we suspect they may have done that to avoid causing too much consumer confusion, due to the differences in network coverage and performance (e.g. CityFibre’s network covers c.3.5m premises but can deliver symmetric upload speeds).
Max Taylor, CCO of Vodafone UK, said:
“We are launching our Great British Telecoms Switch to help people save money on their broadband and make it easier for them to switch. We are committed to Ofcom’s ‘One Touch Switching’ regulation and disappointed it was delayed by our competitors, so calling on them to make sure they hit the new deadline and start making it easier for customers to get the best deal”.
The reference to One Touch Switching (OTS) above relates to Tuesday’s news (here), which saw the organisation responsible for implementing the new switching system – TOTSCo – announce that it had delayed the official go-live date until 12th September 2024. Ofcom pegged most of the blame for that delay at the feet of BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Virgin Media.
As for Vodafone’s offer to cover “up to” £100 of early termination fees for customers who exit their contracts early in order to join Vodafone’s service. We think it would have been nice if they’d made that available across more of their packages, rather than just the top 900Mbps full fibre plan. Vodafone has done similar promotions in the past, and they’re not the only ISP offering to help cover exit fees (e.g. YouFibre).
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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Not sure if they are still buying out remaining contracts, but I know Fibrus have done this, and not just for faster speeds right down to 150Mbps. Vodafone trying to get one step ahead of the competition, using the term “Great British Telecom Switch” although not related, to “One Touch Switching” if that really starts on the 12th Sept, been a few false dawns where this is concerned.
That’s incredibly misleading advertising as it makes no mention of the backend systems (BT Wholesale, TalkTalk’s Platform X, and so on). There’s no point in suggesting that – because you both use the same ‘middle mile’ from Openreach – your offering is the same as anyone else’s when your backend system is plagued by outages.
Oh, and BT/EE cover £300 across all packages. Just sayin’.
“price isn’t the only metric by which consumers judge a service”
– oh yes it is. Those who want more from their _home_ broadband are a minority by a big margin.
Citation for that?
Now here’s a fun straw poll to do. When you’re next with a modest size group of friends, ask them if price is the only measure that they consider when they think about switching broadband ISP and see what they say. You’ll find it’s more complex, but price will obviously remain a key (top) driver. If it’s price alone, then you’re not even considering speed, which we know for many people is also a major factor.
I value “USwitch Rated” which are still trying to sell me 67Mbps BT for about as much as I pay for my 900Mbps. /s
Price-speed is a value proposition for many, based on subjective factors. I don’t think we can pretend to know what other people based their decisions on.
Mark, lets put it in this way: on the (relative) parity of speed, customers will likely make their choices based on the price (which is a combination of termination fee, contract length, any cashbacks etc). I find it hardly plausible that a customer would choose BT (60£/m) over say Vodafone (39£/m for openreach gigafast) IF they had both offers in front of them.
of course its not the only factor speed and quality of service/hardware if a factor.
£50 for 10mbit isnt going to look very attractive
£50 for 1000mbit looks a lot better.
factor in if the hardware works well, can you use your own hardware, can you get a mesh to get full home coverage etc.
Joe public doesnt know all the details but they know if they are getting a raw deal and if the service doesnt work where they need it.
Sky has been covering for 100£ for a while as well
Thats great but not everyone can get 900Mbps… I am stuck on fake fibre speeds and will be till atleast 2027. Cityfibre is not in my area, unlikely to be and Openreach are slow af
I welcome this, because hopefully other isps will do the same, im stuck on FTTC 40mbit with vodafone in contract while I could get 2gbit symetrical from other providers.
Quite Funny, that I look at their site and they still only have 200Mb as their fastest option here
Vodafone entice customers with low prices then provide a poor service. Not saying worse than anyone else but we had days without a phone service. All openreach copper lines have the same problem that you can’t migrate the number without ceasing the line.
BT/EE been offering £300 buyouts for a long long time.
Just beware – if you choose the regular 910 package, you will only be sent a WiFi 5 router which will not achieve 910Mbps wirelessly. Only PRO 910 package will receive a gigabit capable WiFi 6E router. I bought my own but just wanted people to be aware
I can confirm my recent experience as a BT customer moving to vodafone.
BT is pricey , there is no getting away from that. Its criminal!
But Vodafones service, which equates to engineer skill, customer service, account management and resolution times is poor at best – I have been with vodafone for 2 months now and am moving back to BT.
For me its been over 400 calls to vodafone in 2 months and still issues remain unresolved and difficult to communicate baisc logic to their staff regardless of level/rank.
If you like repeating yourself everyday to 3 new enginners who can hardly speak english then this is the service for you.
For the extra money I will gladly move back to BT as they can resolve the same issue in 1 phone call and have done just that this morning for me without me having to whislte off ALL my details 15 times all spelt out phonetically , only to have the call drop and then restart again from the begining .