Ofcom Celebrate as 1.6 Million UK People Switch Broadband or Phone via OTS UPDATE
The UK communications and media regulator, Ofcom, has this morning hailed the fact that 1.62 million consumers have now switched landline (phone) or broadband provider using their new One Touch Switch (OTS) process since it launched for the first time exactly one year ago.
The OTS system, which went live on 12th September 2024 – after over 17 months of delays (here), 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 unlike the old system, which was primarily geared toward Openreach’s network, the new one expanded that to work across the UK’s increasingly diverse market of alternative networks.
The process itself, which still has some problems to overcome, was then implemented through the industry-led The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), which operates a centralised messaging platform (hub) for internet and phone providers to harness. TOTSCo are also developing a separate solution for switching between business connectivity providers, which is currently in testing and due to go live in early 2026 (here).
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The OTS process also got rid of notice-period charges beyond the switch date, as providers must now coordinate the switch over date. “This can save both time and money, as people do not need to coordinate this themselves,” said Ofcom. And providers must also compensate customers if there’s a delay to the start of the new service, or if they are left without a connection for more than one working day.
Cristina Luna Esteban, Ofcom’s Telecoms Policy Director for Networks and Comms, said:
“It’s never been simpler to switch, so we’re pleased that millions of customers have taken advantage of One Touch Switch in the last year and got themselves a new deal.
But there are still many customers who are out of contract and could be missing out on savings. So, we’re urging people to check their contract, compare the offers out there and if changing provider gives them the best deal to switch and save.”
We should point out that the figure of 1.6m is up from 1m at the start of May 2025 and 1.5m in mid-August 2025. Sadly, it’s difficult to know how much of a positive impact OTS has had on switching itself, since there wasn’t a lot of comparable data available on the activity before the OTS system was introduced. But a few ISPs have anecdotally told us that they haven’t seen much of a change in the level of migration activity, although this may vary across the wider market – often for reasons other than OTS itself.
UPDATE 11:31am
TOTSCo has issued a brief update to state that the exact figure for successful switches is 1.625 million and their Hub has processed 22 million messages over the same period. “The hub has consistently met its SLA and latency targets,” said TOTSCo, before adding that they expect the switching figure to reach over 1.8 million by the end of the year.
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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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Celebrating a high customer churn? Churn means there is something not good about the existing service, whether it’s unattractive pricing or poor performing service.
Yes, and it also means that poorly formed policy and misguided regulation encourage a market largely based on loss-making customer acquisition pricing (CAP). That then forces a business model of under-invested customer service, low profitability and high churn. Not that this matter to me. I’m with a small ISP who offer excellent customer service, and I’m paying happily double Virgin Media’s introductory price. Most people would rather save the price of two or three high street coffees each month, and then moan that their ISP is ****. Perhaps the problem is a prevailing attitude in Britain that rather too many people want to have a silk purse for the price of a sow’s ear.
Yes, many ISPs are not brilliant but people stay because the hassle in moving, if people can more easily move the then that should cause them to try and improve service to retain customers.
Not only that I know several that have hopped to altnets for their full-fibre offering.
I’m one of those 1.6 million people. It went smoothly and saved me from being tossed around by customer service agents hanging up the phone or forcing me to reject yet another retention offer.
Ahh, the uk tackling symptoms (and not those well) again rather than the underlying problems.
Still I suppose it keeps lost of people busy ramping up costs rather than fixing the problems, a form of *appy ‘continuos development’ rather than just get it right.
Cost and benifit analysis plan measurement reviews, and openess of the real cost/beifits (on the costly changes for what actual Problem resolution) ?
Ofcons OTS – gee I thought OTS had its own board, and a lot of the costs were in the suppliers (who pas them on to who one should wonder)- who actually owns (all the costs of OTS) and operates OTS, what are the whole costs (including those in the suppliers) and what cost benifit is there (as all laid out the version 1 benifits plan..), and perhaps even more importantly what are the real end user service improvement reaped, other than just more questionable service from yet another provider or are we just on a change supplier (not so) merry go round, with no real net supplier service improvements, by the regulating authority / enforcer…?
Certainly takes some of the stress out of the process. I think the letters to prompt people to consider their options might be being more effective to trigger it, though.
I appreciate the argument of Andrew above, however I suspect companies will always offer deals to acquire customers as long as most of them stick around beyond the contract and can be charged more as a result.
Making it easier to switch should encourage some moderation in price rises because otherwise those customers will more easily be lost; due to this lost revenue the crazy deals will also have to be moderated. But the real gain is increased reward for innovation e.g. synchronous consumer tarrifs.