Vodafone Claim 63 Percent of Brits Have Put Off Switching Broadband ISP
A new OnePoll survey of 2,000 UK adults, which was commissioned by Vodafone UK, has claimed that 63% of British consumers have put off switching broadband providers for the last 4 years. This is said to be due to the fear of being without internet connectivity (27%) and the switching process being too much of a faff (20%).
The same survey states that over half (56%) of respondents feel “stuck” in their current contracts, while 15% admit they’re spooked by the switch, and a quarter (25%) actually say they want to make a change, and would do so if the process was easier (70%) or if someone could manage it for them (75%).
The survey, which additionally claims that BT customers moving to Vodafone could save over £223 (they’re also offering up to £100 towards contract exit fees, when you pay an early termination fee), is clearly intended to capitalise on the introduction of Ofcom’s new One Touch Switching (OTS) system – this makes it quicker and easier for consumers to change broadband ISPs.
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Rob Winterschladen, Consumer Director of Vodafone UK, said:
“Thanks to the launch of One Touch Switch, switching to Vodafone’s Full Fibre Broadband for less really is easy. All people need to do is give us a call or go online, and we’ll manage the whole switching process for them.”
Take note that Vodafone’s saving claim vs BT seems to be a comparison between their Full Fibre 74Mbps (24-month term) package, which costs £24 per month, and BT’s Full Fibre 2 home broadband and phone package at £31.99 per month (plus a £31.99 one-off upfront charge) – comparison excludes new line installation costs & reward cards (data from 22nd Oct 2024 and based on publicly available info.).
However, we should point out that special offers and package prices change all the time, so this gap may go up or down depending on the day you check, as well as whether you’re able to benefit from any special comparison site discounts. The prices can also vary by location (some areas may benefit from specific discounts etc.).
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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I might be more inclined to switch if providers were upfront about the options for upgrading to FTTP whilst already in contract, but what I don’t want is to recontract for VDSL only for FTTP be become available 2 months later (Could be 2 months could be 2 years, no idea)
I did just that with Virgin! 2 months later FTTP came to my road. Fortunately they have agreed to pay me out my Virgin contract at no cost to me.
EE do, it was one of the reasons I moved to them from Virgin Media because I knew FTTP was going to be available within months of moving to them. Luckily it was only a 2 month wait and using FTTC speeds.
The biggest win was getting rid of VM’s awful customer service agents.
I was with BT ADSL and upgraded to BT full fibre when available, mid contract. They wanted me to switch as much as I did… so got full fibre 500 now for only few quid more than ADSL, no exit fees etc
Vodafone will let you upgrade as long as it’s recontracting for 2yrs. Did it twice from FTTC > FTTP and then speed upgrade.
Well, with VM the unlimited ETF is a pretty serious disicentive.. if you could be hit with a 1k+ bill you’re unlikely to do it.
I’m in the process of trying out O.T.S. (one touch switching) and hopefully it’ll go smoothly. Especially with my new ISP paying early leaving fee’s. Will be interesting to see if it goes well (and if I end up out of pocket!)
Re cheap Full Fibre (at the circa 75 Mbps speed) – whilst Vodafone is indeed at the low price end of the market at £24 a month on a 24 month contract (and you can get a £2 discount if you’re already a Voda mobile contract customer), the annual price each April is £3 – which to me is steep, even if it’s the same as many other providers.
Meanwhile NOW Full Fibre 75 ‘powered by Sky’ is currently £23 a month also on a 24 month contract (or £22 a month via affiliate links such as ISPr’s), but doesn’t have an automatic annual price rise baked in – instead there is the rather vague warning that “price may change during the contract”, but if and when it does increase you can exit the contract for free if you were to decide the rise is unacceptable.
Otherwise for budget offerings one is into the slightly suspect territory of Onestream, or unknown territory (to me at least) of “POP telecom”.
I appreciate many on here will scoff at a mere 75Mbps connection, but for lots of people that really will satisfy their needs.
I’m with A&A and certainly have no plans to switch any time soon. Other than internally, from VDSL to real fibre when it finally arrives. If Openreach arrives first, I’ll pay the same as now; if CityFibre wins, it’ll actually get cheaper!
I’m with Aquiss (on FTTP) and like you I’m not switching provider anytime soon. I could certainly save money with one of the “bargain priced+rubbish service” offers from Voda, VM, or the other big players, probably around £150 a year. But I’d rather pay more and have a decent ISP who wants my custom, has good customer service, and doesn’t try and rip me off with inflation plus price rises every year.
There’s a thought for all of the big ISPs, and especially for VMO2: I value your crap customer service and dubious commercial practices at minus £150 a year. I hope you’re ashamed.
I stayed with Plusnet for 9 years, I was only going to stay for 18 months as I only went with them as they were the only ones who could give me a quick connection. Part of BT and I am not a fan of BT. Anyway, come the end of 18 months, the service was good, and they gave me a good offer and that happened for the all the time i was with them
at the end of the day the connection was fine, no other provider on the Openreach network is really going to offer anything better.
As I have said before, I moved because Plusnet was trying to push me to FTTP and stick me into a 24-month contract, and the price they wanted to charge was not great. Zzoomm came along, and I thought if I had to move to Fibre, I may was well choose a better network and for a decent price.
If Zzoomm had not come along, I would have no doubt gone for Now FTTC broadband or something like that.
At the end of the day if you are getting a good service for the right price, then why move?
I don’t know if things are changing as Plusnet gradually becomes more integrated / subsumed into the overall BT/EE Consumer retail operation, but Plusnet’s retentions team were pretty good at matching the new customer offer prices of other providers in my experience. The only thing is whilst cheap, Plusnet aren’t the cheapest – undercut by NOW and Vodafone – and they’ve now got the £3 a month April annual price rise baked in too. So perhaps Plusnet retentions are not quite so flexible now.
I currently don’t have any FTTP provider at my address, but I’m waiting personally to get off of Openreach and onto an alternet preferably.
Openreach missed my street and connected most of the surrounding ones, so I’m a little bit upset with them. Call it petty but my experience of trying to find out why is hard work and I still don’t know the actual answer why.
I accepted another FTTC contract with Vodafone with their basic router in February thinking it wouldn’t be long before I could upgrade the equipment and go much faster with Cityfibre. I’m still waiting…
If you’re able to receive 5G home broadband where you live I can recommend Three 5G Home Broadband which is quite cheap and usually with a half price introduction charge. I get download speeds of up to 400gbps. Well worth investigating.
Tried that. Three can offer me 4G at 10Mbps! To be honest, the only 5G available indoors at my home with a decent signal is apparently O2, but I haven’t tried or tested it. Usually it’s congested here in any case.
@Jax I presume you mean 400 Megabits per second.
If you fit external aerials to a 4 or 5G router I reckon it would be a good investment. I ran a speediest stood next to a 3 mast and it beat my FTTP line so anything that improves signal level will make a big impact on performance.
If you want to trasfer your landline and maybe unlimited calls it gets messy with the pricing. And some suppliers do not do voice.
Do many people actually still use a landline? Almost everyone has a mobile phone and with wifi calling, even people in homes with poor mobile reception don’t have a need for a landline. Plus mobile contracts are pretty much all unlimited minutes now as data is what you pay for. I had a landline when I was with BT purely because it was included in the price. Moved to Trooli and binned it off. I never expected to miss it and never have. Now the elderly might like their landline, but they are also much less likely to switch provider.
I have a personal thing about TV and broadband providers not offering a level playing field to existing customers when they take out a new minimum term contract. I have long hated the 18 month negotiations with Sky about a new TV contract so I have kicked them into the long grass. I am considering leaving Aquiss because they refuse to offer the discounted rate for a more expensive service whereas other ISPs will offer me a 60% faster speed for the same price as I am paying Aquiss, or a 900Mbps service for the same prices Aquiss plus a Wifi 7 router and wifi extender.
The things putting me off switching are that my Aquiss service over the past 3 years has been near faultless, and do I really want another router etc when I have a perfectly good Wifi6 router capable of 2.5Gbps? I am not too concerned about moving from one OR FTTP service to another.
I’m in the middle of a 2-year contract with YouFibre and I have to say I am loving the service at the moment. I’m paying £28 a month for 500 up and 500 down, and with no price rises during the contract either. If there is a problem, their customer service is great as well and have no problem in helping.
I have had Virgin Media coming banging on my door asking why I am not with them and just told them that their price increases mid-contract are a rip-off, and they have awful customer services and that is why I don’t want to go with them.
I switched to an alt net during covid. Mainly bc they promised 100mbps download speeds when openreach could only provide me 26. I regretted it as I had constant issues (6G internt). The price is enticing but they needed a larger technical team to cope with the demands I think. I’ve also recently just found out that openreach installed fttp in my area in 2021 but missed my street. Though they used the existing ducts on my street to serve the street behind me? I’m not sure the reason for not upgrading my street but after escalating it looks like we may get it Q2 2025 (if ever). When we first moved we were with talk talk then switched to Vodafone for a number of years. Briefly switched to BT as we thought that would help our odds with fttp (though it does not work like that) then back to Vodafone due to the price being cheaper for the same speeds. A few minor issues with Vodafone over the years but eventually they got resolved. I am open to switching providers but they’d have to support openreach or possibly cityfibre essentially a company that is open to any isp and not just specifically for them such as virgin media or brsk