Survey Claims Half of UK People Plan to Switch Broadband and Mobile Provider
A new cost-of-living study conducted by market research firm Maru, which polled 40,000 UK adults at multiple touchpoints over three years to date, claims to have found that 53% of respondents thought it was “likely” that they would need to consider changing their home broadband in order to cut costs. A further 52% said the same for their mobile phone plan.
In addition, some 54% of Britons also say that they are considering cancelling at least one entertainment subscription, such as Netflix, Disney+, YouTube Premium, or Amazon Prime, in order to save money. All of this comes against the background of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, which for many has become even more of a challenge following recent tax rises and fiscal drag in other areas.
According to Maru’s most recent polling, most Brits think that it is ‘likely’ that they will need to make further cuts to their spending in other areas, including holding off on big purchases and spending less on food, eating out, energy, insurance, and home appliances.
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“Our cost-of-living research shows that Brits are increasingly looking for new ways to cut their spending as rising costs continue to squeeze household finances and reduce spending power – and one of the most common ways in which they are looking to doing this is by reducing the cost of their broadband and mobile phone bills,” said Stephen Brockway, Chief Research Officer at Maru.
The Most Common Ways in which Britons Plan to Save Money:
1. Eating in rather than eating out – 84%
2. Shop around for lower insurance costs – 81%
3. Buying more budget or own brand groceries – 78%
4. Holding off on big purchases (e.g. holidays, new car) – 76%
5. Spending less on clothes and shoes – 77%
6. Using the heating less or turning down the thermostat – 78%
7. Spend less on home appliances – 73%
8. Spend less on home improvements – 71%
9. Switch more of my food shopping to a lower prices supermarket – 68%
10. Cancel gym subscriptions or memberships – 66%
11. Spend less on food and groceries – 58%
12. Seek help/advice on lowering energy bills – 55%
13. Cancel entertainment subscriptions – 54%
14. Change home broadband to a lower cost – 53%
15. Change mobile phone plan to a lower cost – 52%
16. Improve insulation in my home – 51%
In the past, we’ve often been sceptical about the accuracy of consumer surveys like this, since real-world data doesn’t always reflect the snapshot of opinions collected by such studies. In terms of broadband, we can now actually see just how wide of the mark the situation between surveyed samples and reality really is, thanks in large part to the public data being released by the industry-led One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo).
TOTSCo reflects the central messaging platform for implementing Ofcom’s recently launched (Sept 2024) solution for easier and quicker consumer switching between broadband and phone providers (aka – One Touch Switching). According to TOTSCo’s data (see live switching data), the Hub has delivered over 852,000 switches successfully completed since its launch in September 2024, which suggests that significantly fewer people are actually switching than those surveyed above may indicate.
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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As the survey was over three years then two thirds will have switched by now, if they meant what they said. Who pays for this nonsense?
people are far far too lazy to switch mobile and broadband.
they would prefer to moan about the cost of living and do nothing about it.
48% of people with disagree with that.
you are right, or they trust the company they are with, certainly if it is BT.
Granted, I can’t see myself changing broadband while I am here unless something go wrong, and I was with Plusnet for 9 years, but then I got a decent offer at the end of the contracts
I am happy with Zzoomm, which is who I am with and while I may drop speed to pay less, I am going to stay with them.
I changed BB, went to a cheaper tariff and have not gone on holiday for a long time.
But food prices are going sky high and wages are stagnant.
It’ll be a gov funded survey in some shape or form…. Of course we have to keep switching as there is no such thing as customer loyalty
Maru provide customer experience research for private companies but it looks as though they fund the cost of living survey themselves for publicity purposes.
Holiday, what’s that ? Oh, I remember, Last one 2011, when I was employed.
Now I’m a conscripted member of RR’s chained-to-the-spot-gang, aka 15 minute City, maximum security twilight gulag, pensioners, we must be short-changed so others can enjoy the fruits of conspicuous consumption yielded by the great Ka -pittle- ism.
Landline and landline broadband is definately in my sights for chopping,with the prospect of halving the comms annual bill.
Nothing that couldn’t be changed by elevating pensions to European levels.
You haven’t had a holiday in 14 years? The UK has a ton of beautiful area to visit, you aren’t obliged to going abroad to holiday.
@take a break , some holidays in the U.K cost more than taking one abroad.
I want to go off for a few days this year, not sure where,
Trains are stupidly expensive too (it cost £17 the other day just to get to the next city down, got fully refunded due to 2hr+ delay). If you have a car, Wales has a lot of nice and beautiful places to go but it’s probably still expensive (I think it cost ~£400 for 3 of us to have a cottage from a Friday to Monday in September in Ceredigion).
If they want to save money, then maybe stop using Deliveroo to get their shopping, it must cost people a fortune to get Deliveroo to deliver their booze and crisps. There is certainly money around.
Anyway, I got rid of Netflix a while back, I am thinking of getting rid of Disney+, I don’t really use it that much, I have subscribed to ITVx, but only for the Formula E to stop the adverts cutting the races. Even so, there are still some good old stuff I like watching
But it does all add up over the month, Disney+, Prime and ITV X, around £23 or so for the month for all 3. Still better value for me than the TV licence, which I don’t pay, but I think it is time for something to go, certainly in the summer
Just going to give you a tip now, you can block ads on ITVX without the subscription. I’ve been using the AdGuard DNS without any problems for blocking ads, it’ll attempt to load but it’ll give up after 5 seconds.
Same trick should work for My5 too, but it takes much longer.
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Disney+ can be bundled in with some mobile networks to reduce the price iirc but I think you’re on an MVNO right? Same for Prime, but we get student discount thankfully.
Either way, definitely agree with what you’re stating here.
Oh in addition to my previous comment (or maybe the one below when this gets approved), if anyone’s thinking about cutting back on streaming services, I’d say Prime is the most worthwhile one to keep. You get various Amazon perks and Prime has the best streaming selection in my view for someone who has been consuming a lot of films since February (e.g. watched The Silence of The Lambs through it the other day, The Wolf of Wall Street (no longer on there), Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction (don’t think this is on there either), The Cornetto Trilogy (search it up), The Batman Trilogy). There’s a lot on there honestly.
We are all having to cut back on our expenditure.
We have not been abroad for ten years. Initially because of the uncontrolled immigrant situation at Calais where there was little sign of control and we felt really vulnerable in our open top car. That was followed by the covid-19 restrictions. Now foreign holidays have been priced out of our reach so it’s day trips only within England as fuel to get to Scotland is too expensive. The motorhome has not been used for several years, and is currently up for sale. Our home gas heating has been disconnected and we now rely upon a couple of air-sourced electric heaters to warm the two rooms we use. Our food comes from the cheapest source we can find, and we’ll connect it using several trips on bikes, rather than using a car.
We have all felt the financial restrictions imposed by recent UK governments and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel given the number of clowns in power around the works. Like many others, I am having to make numerous cut backs by staying at home and and only spending on essentials.