Sponsored Links

FTTP providers doing a bad job in marketing their products?

Jasonm

Pro Member
Apart from the fact that the ISPs really did and still do a poor job communicating the real benefits of their services, I also noticed that they really don't inform the neighborhood when they're available in streets. I thought I'd get bombarded with flyers and emails (as I signed up to the BT, cityfibre and openreach fill fibre availability forms) - but absolutely nothing. If I wouldn't be a fibre geek and check out bidb on a constant basis I wouldn't know that it's available in my street now...
 
Apart from the fact that the ISPs really did and still do a poor job communicating the real benefits of their services, I also noticed that they really don't inform the neighborhood when they're available in streets. I thought I'd get bombarded with flyers and emails (as I signed up to the BT, cityfibre and openreach fill fibre availability forms) - but absolutely nothing. If I wouldn't be a fibre geek and check out bidb on a constant basis I wouldn't know that it's available in my street now...
Openreach have done my town, and have done absolutely nothing to promote the availability of FTTP. Neither have any of the ISPs. Its an area which has Virgin Media but no other altnet activity yet, has withdrawn copper services from sale where FTTP is available, so it's a bit of a surprise they have failed to give the residents a nudge.
 
To be fair, I do see a fair amount of leafleting from Alternative Network projects, but the bigger players like Openreach and Virgin Media just don't seem to bother as much - unless they need to trench the street and then pre-notice is par for the course.

Having said that, most of us a hard-wired to throw flyers posted through our doors into the bin, assuming them to be spam. So, I wonder how much they really help or get noticed.
 
Sponsored Links
So for me - Virgin extended in my town and the next one over recently and they've been going absolutely ham with leafletting / promo.

  1. Leaflet when the works were being done - a "Sorry for the disruption" with a nice advert of whats coming at the bottom
  2. Leaflet once this is live with a "we're live!" type comms
  3. Some flats have had large a2/a3 posters put up with a name and mobile phone number to call to get on service
I'm assuming #3 is because the sales staff will be getting commissions for those connections - so I suspect it's down to area and how much they want the extra ££.


BT providers probably are a little bit more tentative and assume they wait until some connections go live. Nothing worse than advertising to customers and then they try to sign up only to find an Openreach problem with sign up. Though after BT FTTP went live I actually had a TalkTalk rep at my door. (Though he did try and sell it as being over Cityfibre - this is not correct)
 
Community Fibre built in our area last year and there were numerous mail and door-to-door campaigns. I'd call it an effective sales operation as just walking down the street take-up is around 20%, which is pretty good for less than 12 months in.

Openreach FTTP went live at a similar time and while I think TalkTalk and Sky did mail-outs, take-up is around 5%. What didn't help was that BT Wholesale didn't tick the right box in a database somewhere, so WBC FTTP didn't go on sale until 9 months after build completion when I emailed the BT executive complaints team. 24 hours later the box had been ticked.
 
I get generic FTTC leaflets from Sky and Talktalk offering me up to 80mbs on a regular basis, despite the BT wholesale checker confirming I am ADSL only. Not really sure they know what technologies are available by postcode.
 
Sponsored Links
Yeah... What annoyed me the most is that I signed up to all the FTTP availability email lists and I didn't receive a single email about it so far 😂 It's like they don't wanna make money.
.
The ads should also be way more informative about how much more reliable the service is and show actual speed comparisons etc... For some reason, UK based ISPs try to dumb stuff down a lot (lived in a couple of other countries in my life - the ISPs there are running way more educational campaigns)
 
It has been similar where we are, or at least for me. I only know that Digital Infrastructure (BeFibre) are installing around here because I looked up the name I saw on the van when they were pushing fibre through BT's ducts and also saw them on BID. I signed up for a BeFibre notification but haven't heard anything. No leaflets (I do bin them but check them first!).

Since then Openreach have started and have put a leaflet through.

If it wasn't for my inquisitiveness (and reading this invaluable site!) I wouldn't even know Digital Infrastructure / BeFibre existed, let alone that they are rolling out FTTP in out area.

Having said that though @lukefielding lives nearby and he apparently had someone from BeFibre knock on the door, so maybe that has happened here and we weren't in. Although it could also be because they have progressed further where he is - they have some boxes on the poles nearby but only coiled up fibre cable so far on our pole.
 
It has been similar where we are, or at least for me. I only know that Digital Infrastructure (BeFibre) are installing around here because I looked up the name I saw on the van when they were pushing fibre through BT's ducts and also saw them on BID. I signed up for a BeFibre notification but haven't heard anything. No leaflets (I do bin them but check them first!).

Since then Openreach have started and have put a leaflet through.

If it wasn't for my inquisitiveness (and reading this invaluable site!) I wouldn't even know Digital Infrastructure / BeFibre existed, let alone that they are rolling out FTTP in out area.

Having said that though @lukefielding lives nearby and he apparently had someone from BeFibre knock on the door, so maybe that has happened here and we weren't in. Although it could also be because they have progressed further where he is - they have some boxes on the poles nearby but only coiled up fibre cable so far on our pole.
If I'd be an infrastructure provider (especially an altnet), I'd bombard all the residents of the connected areas with educational materials or "early bird discounts" until they finally sign up :D
 
I generally believed this, until last week when Community Fibre started coming around the local houses and knocking with some tasty new joiner deals.

I managed to nab 1gig for £35 a month, on a 24 month contract with the first 12 months free. That’s £17.50 a month for symmetrical gigabit fibre!
 
Sponsored Links
Nice one! I wish they'd do that here with cityfibre... However, they just seem to build for a year without going live... Luckily OR was quicker
 
A few BT FTTP adverts come in the Post Office junk mail which irks as we are a long reach ADSL only service area.

When Virgin Media deployed FTTP, info came through the door warning about drive access limitations for trenching and how to register your interest in the service.

Once the VM service was active the sales team let us know we could place an order.
 
When Fibrus went live in my area I got 4 phone calls, a letter and an person visit. I had of course already signed up before the first call haha.
 
Since CityFibre went live in my area there's been a decent number of leaflets through the door from CityFibre and Talktalk along with a number of online ads for Zen and Brawband (the other two CF providers).

A while back when I was living in Edinburgh with a rubbish Tiscali line there were leaflets through the door from Telewest for cable all the time, sometimes as much as daily. The landlord decided to change from ADSL to cable so phoned them up to change over which I was very pleased about until it turned out they didn't supply our street (despite it being a big one in the centre) and no plans to either.
 
Last edited:
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £24.00
132Mbps
Gift: None
Shell Energy UK ISP Logo
Shell Energy £26.99
109Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £27.99
145Mbps
Gift: None
Zen Internet UK ISP Logo
Zen Internet £28.00 - 35.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £15.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
YouFibre UK ISP Logo
YouFibre £19.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £21.00
150Mbps
Gift: £25 Love2Shop Card
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5472)
  2. BT (3505)
  3. Politics (2524)
  4. Openreach (2291)
  5. Business (2251)
  6. Building Digital UK (2234)
  7. FTTC (2041)
  8. Mobile Broadband (1961)
  9. Statistics (1778)
  10. 4G (1654)
  11. Virgin Media (1608)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1451)
  13. Fibre Optic (1392)
  14. Wireless Internet (1386)
  15. FTTH (1381)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules