1 Million UK Consumers Have Switched Broadband ISP Since Sept 2024
The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), which is the industry-led organisation responsible for helping to deliver Ofcom’s solution (One Touch Switching) for easier and quicker UK consumer switching between broadband and phone providers on different networks, has successfully completed 1 million service migrations since its launch on 12th September 2024.
The OTS system remains a Gaining Provider Led (GPL) process, where the customer contacts their new (“gaining“) ISP to start and manage the process on their behalf. But despite a bit of a bumpy start, which we won’t recap today, this has now been widely adopted by the vast majority of consumer facing ISPs.
On the flip side, some smaller ISPs continue to lag behind on their adoption, which is causing problems for consumers who wish to escape or even join those same providers (Ofcom has yet to take any solid action against this). In addition, TOTSCo’s messaging platform, including the systems that some ISPs have put in place for engaging with it, remains somewhat of an imperfect animal where bugs and problems can still obstruct or delay switches.
Advertisement
“The OTS process is now well established, and we’re seeing the positive results of our combined efforts,” said Paul Bradbury, CEO of TOTSCo. “As providers and [Managed Access Providers (MAPs)] have become more familiar with OTS, we’ve noticed a significant reduction in issues and enquiries while the overall match-rate has risen gradually since go-live from 60% to a current value of around 67%. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the process and the collective commitment across industry to continuous improvement.”
Despite the issues, it’s pleasing to see the 1 million switches milestone being achieved (up from 920,000 on 25th April – just two weeks ago, or about 40k per week) and this also provides a solid figure for the level of actual consumer switching that is taking place between broadband ISPs in the UK market. The figure is many times lower than the artificially inflated claims about switching that we often see from those flaky opinion-based consumer surveys.
The TOTSCo platform is now switching (no pun intended) its focus toward the development of a switching solution for business connections and providers (details), which is occurring alongside the separate Gaining Provider Led Business (GPLB) Switching Industry Process (here). The first connection testing for this is still due to get underway at the end of this month, with the goal then being to then go live with a viable service in “early 2026“.
The difficulty is that business connectivity is a much more challenging, diverse and complex field, where the sort of problems that ISPs have encountered with consumer switching is less likely to be well tolerated. But to be clear, while business providers are still required to follow most of the same OTS rules (i.e. Ofcom simply have not specified what the process should be for such ISPs), there is no requirement for any ISP to use TOTSCo’s own business switching solution (once it exists) and business switching is considered a competitive market. In practice, many will probably still end up using TOTSCo’s platform.
Advertisement
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.
« Vodafone UK Quietly Launch New Pro 3 Broadband Plan and WiFi 7 Router UPDATE
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message. By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
I rather detest the ‘One Touch Switching’ system. Sometimes you want to try another ISP’ out on the same infrastructure (one OpenReach ISP to another) without cancelling your current one and simply switching credentials. You can no longer do this.
I used to have no problem doing this before, and now everything is horribly bound to OpenReach’s system that refuses to allow more than one account per address/ONT.
The workings utterly elude me.
Two weeks, minimum, to change your ISP now. You can’t just sign up with another and get on with things without interruption.
Everything moves so unbelievably slowly in the UK broadband market. Two steps forward and three steps back are habitually celebrated.
Bleh.
I did not even know that was possible to have two providers on the same network at the same time?
Same day switching is no problem when going to an alternative network “altnet” (and I do it for customers regularly). It’s entirely up to the gaining provider how quickly they can activate a service, if the Openreach/BTWholesale system is crappy enough to not allow same day that’s not an OTS issue.
On BTw/Openreach: Multiple services per ONT also possible but requires the gaining provider to request a multi-port ONT. Something probably too obscure and complicated for the “large retail” providers to bother with. Smaller providers almost certainly will oblige and progress an order for multiple services on a single fibre/ONT.
As someone who helps people move to Altnets and VoIP multiple times weekly.. OTS has massively improved the ease of switching and chances of success with a number port request.
Silly me, I was reading it as if he was using FTTC, yes, it is possible on FTTP.,
Nothing to do with FTTP or FTTC. Openreach only care about which of their customers you’re with, Wholesale only need to care about the details you’re trying to log in with. As long as you stay with the same Wholesaler could technically flit between them.
Of course there was the issue of who was actually paying the line rental and who was paying Wholesale. An ISP could allow you to log in to them immediately but would have to place an order through Wholesale else they were dependent on the ISP Wholesale were actually billing continuing to pay Wholesale.
Being able to bounce between ISPs like this signing up for them to try them out in the hope they’d enable you on their RADIUS immediately wasn’t intended behaviour but hardly anyone did it so no big deal.
Can still do it, just will have to ask the ISP rather than signing up and misusing the cooling off period.
I don’t know what is so o great about people using a service that most people changing providers have no choice but to use. Most people will go for the easiest option/
If I was changing to another network, then I would not go through OTS.
Made my move from Virgin Media to iDNET (Openreach) very simple in comparison to the manual process.
“Made my move from Virgin Media to iDNET (Openreach) very simple in comparison to the manual process.”
This is one of the scenarios where a gaining provider led system works a treat, because those companies who sometimes deliberately stymied customers trying to leave now have no opportunity to do that. VM certainly did it often enough to generate regular complaints in their own help forum, but to be fair they didn’t put any obstacles in my way when I left, never to return.
When I moved from Plusnet (openreach FTTC ) to Zzoomm(Zzoomm FTTP) :), I got zzoomm installed first and then cancelled plusnet, it may have cost me a few quid extra because of the crossover, but at least knew that Zzoomm was working before I cancelled Plusnet.
I would do it that way again if I moved network.
Same here Carlos……same day switch. Literally install took place, 30 minutes later my VM went down and my new ISP came online. Brilliant experience.
What I was trying to point out, is that the way it is worded as if it is a great achievement that 1 million people have used the services, but when people have little choice but to use it when switching, it is not really an achievement.
When people have little choice but to use a service, it is not an achievement to have lots of people using it.
Competition works
Yearly bs price gouging increases treating customers like cash cows forces people to switch
Unfortunately Ofcom have a remit from ministers to encourage competition, and the metric used to judge that is how many people switch provider. So the more people who switch, the better they can evidence that goal (remember, set by ministers, not Ofcom). Obviously that says nothing about customer satisfaction. To my mind, a market that works well is one where there’s no barriers to switching, and most customers DON’T switch because they’re happy.
I’m with Aquiss via OR FTTP; I could easily get a much cheaper deal from one of the majors, albeit on one of those criminal “guaranteed price increase” deals. But why would I? Aquiss customer service is excellent, my price is not artificially forced up every year for no good reason, and I’m happy that the deal is on mutually beneficial terms. I don’t have to endure crappy offshored customer service, on the rare occasions I’ve had to contact them I get a prompt and intelligent response. If people want lower prices, there’s plenty of other choices, like Talktalk.
Not sure that’s true or this proves anything.
Switching activity is likely high because of the shift to Fibre anyhow.
I bought myself a 5G router in late 2023 and got an unlimited data sim card for £15 a month..
I easy get 400 mbps download and 100 mbps upload. I’m surprised more people don’t do the same. And if I want to change provider all I’ve got to do is source a new data sim card.
Because most people are not lucky enough to see 400 mbps over 5G at home. And get even worse speeds in the evening in over-saturated areas.
I think the challenge is consistency.
I have a 5G router and Three SIM as a backup connection.
I see around 250Mbps down / 25Mbps up, however latency is all over the place and I wouldn’t want my main connection to be so inconsistent.
Haven’t switched since 2020. Why not? Because I’m with A&A, who are brilliant. And guess what, they haven’t even increased our prices … since 2020. Which is quite astonishing really. All I will do is switch to an FTTP tariff when fibre finally, finally comes…
You pay £45 a month for capped FTTC via what was their Lite package. That might contribute to the lack of price increase.
Not that simple, most people do not have a good 5G signal to reach those speeds. They are lucky to get one hundredth.
Ofcom have promoted a unhealthy market for loyal customers. It is clear they prefer things like introductory deals, as it gives the impression of overall lower prices. But to me I have always considered a high switch rate to be a sign of bad satisfaction levels, satisfied customers dont keep jumping ship.
Many, if not most of these people will be switching to access a cheaper deal.
The deal will be cheaper, likely because of new customer discounts that existing customers can’t easily access, if at all.
In many cases people wont be unhappy with the existing supplier or even care who the supplier is, but will be more interested in the fact theyre a fiver cheaper than other. Often where they are unhappy changing the ISP wont make a difference. My mother complains “the wifi keeps going off” the issue is she lives in a big house with solid walls and insists on keeping the router at the far end of the house. My aunt complains about slow internet in the evening (FTTC) but changing ISP wont do much to alter the issues.
Imagine if, instead of going through this rigmarole of changing suppliers, the same effort was put into to retaining customers. If the government or regulator wants to intervene, why not intervene in that?
Of course it isnt something limited to ISP. My home insurance is due next month, my current insurer has dealt with a civil case with excellence, confirming it isnt even viewed as a claim. I am really happy with them… But…. Last year they was the cheapest 5 star insurer at £145, the renewal invite offer has just come in at over £220. Confused offer me about 10 polices between £147-£190
I just dont understand why existing good customers, who have always paid in full, caused no issues, caused no costs for ISP, Insurers, UCos etc arnt valued? Is the loss of non renewals REALLY made up for my those few who just blindly renew?
Why is every contract now 2 years? I would love to get rid of this crappy fttc line, not get locked in for another 2 years.
What exactly are they covering with a 2 year contract, a crappy router I wouldn’t pay a fiver for?
This is really starting to annoy me. Every provider should be required to have 12 month terms available.