3.5 million UK people have switched broadband via One Touch Switching
Two years have passed since UK fixed broadband and phone providers began using Ofcom’s new One Touch Switch (OTS) process, which was designed to make it easier and quicker to change ISP. The latest data supplied to ISPreview shows that 3,481,323 consumers have now switched provider using this process (up from 1.62m in the first year).
The OTS system, which went live on 12th September 2024 via a central messaging platform (Hub) that is run by the industry-funded The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), is a Gaining Provider Led (GPL) process where the customer contacts their new (“gaining“) ISP to start and manage the process on their behalf.
However, regular readers may recall that this system had a bit of a bumpy start, due in part to TOTSCo’s platform initially being in somewhat of a beta state and a number of ISPs failing to fully support it at launch. Nevertheless, various improvements have been made since then (more are coming), and in June 2026 the regulator, Ofcom, closed their related enforcement programme (here).
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Despite the improvements, the process does still sometimes suffer from problems, such as with matching customer details between providers during a switch (TOTSCo’s Hub still has a match rate of c.64%, rising to 83% for the biggest two ISPs) and the fact that a very small number of providers are not always fully adhering to the OTS process. But Ofcom now seems generally pleased with its performance.
Overall 1.86 million broadband and phone switches took place over the past year using the OTS process, which is up from 1.62m the year before and represents a total of just a hair under 3.5m across the first two years of operation.
Paul Bradbury, CEO of TOTSCo, told ISPreview:
“Reaching more than three million completed switches as we mark two years of One Touch Switch is a milestone the whole industry can be proud of. It reflects the enormous amount of collaboration across industry to establish a simpler switching process for consumers and a service that is now firmly embedded in the UK telecoms market.
Our focus now is on building on that success, continuing to work with providers to improve performance, while also using the experience and proven infrastructure developed for One Touch Switch to support the industry’s move towards Business Switching.”
The hub has more recently begun to expand into helping business ISPs and related packages to support switching.
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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