Fairer broadband prices for existing customers

HaroldWren5

Keruge said:

alan235 said:

Now that the law has been changed and insurance companies cannot charge deeply discounted prices to new customers, how about getting the same fairer treatment for Broadband customers?

 The major broadband companies like Virgin Media, Talk Talk and BT are all offering cheap deals to new customers that they state in their advertising are not available to existing clients.

 For example VM Big Bundle of broadband, TV and phone is currently £29.99/mth for 18 months and with a £75 bill credit.

I am an existing customer with VM with Big Bundle and paying £58/mth soon to be £62/mth from March 2022.

Surely the same rules should apply to broadband companies as now does to insurance companies?

 Depends on what you  call fair, the whole broadband market is dysfunctional.

We were regularly getting offers of £25 a year even one offer on MSE for £5.38 for the year including the router and delivery of same.

Then OFGEM and the CMA sold us out.

They allowed BT to buy EE, so BT now consisted of

BT
Plusnet
EE
BT Wholesale (or whatever name they are calling it)

After that the Companies seemed to get together and decide to no longer compete.

I don't know if BT Wholesale was given some ability to make their cost price not work or whether they we acting like OPEC but what I do know is prices went up and up and up.  In fact OFCOM even allowes them to stuff in an inflation increase into the contract.

We are talking about wires and routers that are in, they are installed, they do not suffer inflation.

It is not just OFCOM, all of the so called regulators work for the industries rather than the consumer. 

Energy companies get £14 BILLION for smart meters and they expect us to bail them out when the gas market goes teetes up, what about the shareholders who benefited in the good times, why should we bail them out. 

I say reset the gas and electricity prices to 2020 levels and dump the standing charge, if they go bust we can take control of the company when they go bust and float them again in the future.

So I am not very keen on your idea, what I want to see is BT Wholesale made into a separate non profit.

I want BT to spin off broadband from EE and Plusnet.

BT could still sell broadband and own the EE Mobile business, it can even go buy a TV company but the CMA needs to BREAK UP BT to restore competition to this market.

How many times did BT say they were going to invest in the network and yet it is still rubbish for the same "poor relations" in rural areas or those who live in built up areas.

All this nonsense of charging you to disconnect, charging you to connect, once a household is connected to their exchange that setup should be permanent.  The exchange should merely put them on the VLAN for their subscriber or put them in a disconnected VLAN until an occupant signed up again.  No engineer call out, no mess at the green box, just a software switch, a drag n drop in software.

Do you think that Barclays Bank or the NHS pull out all the wiring to a desk when an employee leaves, of course not.  Even the security conscious will simply disable the port in software.

Exactly. The wholesaler for the infrastructure needs to be separate from BT (or any ISP). 

[Deleted User]

I think the priority should be better quality broadband, the prices suck anyway and the consumers just accept them and get caught up in saving a few quid a month.

I get 11 times the speed of the average UK internet speed (50.4 mbps) but I only pay about double the lowest prices on offer for the slowest broadband available - that's value for money for me.

Race to the bottom with broadband and you the consumer are just feeding it by jumping around the lowest price packages, you will get what you pay for and I have no sympathy when your wifi is rubbish in the back bedroom with your "free" ISP router that is just getting worse year on year to slash prices.

Insurance is a totally different ball game and shouldn't be compared anyway, it is a risk based business. The longer you stay with an insurer then statistically the more likely they will have to pay out on a claim against you. The risk is complex, customers that can be bothered to actually phone up their existing provider and negotiate are probably lower risk that those that just hop around looking for the cheapest deal to keep them on the road. Not all car insurance is equal, I don't buy the cheapest one on offer, I buy the package with the things I need.

QrizB

Deleted_User said:

I get 11 times the speed of the average UK internet speed (50.4 mbps) but I only pay about double the lowest prices on offer for the slowest broadband available - that's value for money for me.

And that's your choice.

My household was quite happy with 18Mbps ADSL until COVID hit, when I switched to 37Mbps VDSL. I'm paying about £16/mo for a system that does everything I want, as fast as I want it. That's value for money for me.

 I don't buy the cheapest one on offer, I buy the package with the things I need.

Exactly that.

[Deleted User]

QrizB said:

And that's your choice.

My household was quite happy with 18Mbps ADSL until COVID hit, when I switched to 37Mbps VDSL. I'm paying about £16/mo for a system that does everything I want, as fast as I want it. That's value for money for me.

Absolutely if 37Mbps works for you then that's great, my point is that the sliding scale ain't right, my internet is 15 times faster than yours yet I'm paying 2.5 times the price.

Something is wrong in the product when the sales pitch is all about speed vs price yet unlike most products where you get diminishing returns for the high end, it is the opposite for broadband.

Say I have a car that does top speed 120mph, to get a 240mph one doesn't simply cost double, it probably costs 10 times more.

Say I have a £1000 computer that benchmarks at X then to get one that is 2X is probably 5 times the cost.

Say I have a 50" TV that starts around £250, look for a 100" TV and you need the shell out £2,500

But just like broadband, if you are happy doing 70mph, using an X speed PC or 50" TV then that is great for you, but the whole market is absolute broken for broadband where getting 10-15 times more cost much less in real terms.

anotheruser

Are people really missing the point of the OPs post?

It doesn't matter what the service is, it's about enabling returning customers to receive the same deals as new customers.
Not sure why people think that's a win for insurance but wouldn't be a win for broadband - you can still negotiate down prices.

[Deleted User]

anotheruser said:

Are people really missing the point of the OPs post?

It doesn't matter what the service is, it's about enabling returning customers to receive the same deals as new customers.
Not sure why people think that's a win for insurance but wouldn't be a win for broadband - you can still negotiate down prices.

You can't compare car insurance to broadband as a product or service.

Doesn't matter what I pay or who I pay it to, I still have the same experience 99.999% of the time when I drive my car. I might notice a difference if I'm involved in an accident or loss that relies on my insurance company. It is also a legal requirement, I can't choose not to buy insurance if I want to drive my car, it is a boring product that I buy because I have to.

Car insurance pricing isn't like broadband either, it is based on your profile, postcode, car, claims history, driving record etc.

Broadband is a product that you choose to buy and has a range of quality experiences and choices that affect you on a daily basis - we buy broadband because we want it, not because we are legally required to purchase it.

The problem is consumers don't really understand broadband and just want the cheapest price which drives the suppliers into this race to capture consumers at the lowest price knowing that apathy will set in at renewal time and they will continue to pay it if the service has been ok because the consumer fears an interruption to service or has heard horror stories about BT / Plusnet / Vodafone / Shell etc on here so will avoid risking changing supplier.

Consumer behaviour has driven this market, not the ISP's!

Consumers are happy with a below par product even at the discounted introductory prices and that is the problem combined with the lack of choice.

agentcain

[Deleted User] said:

anotheruser said:

Are people really missing the point of the OPs post?

It doesn't matter what the service is, it's about enabling returning customers to receive the same deals as new customers.
Not sure why people think that's a win for insurance but wouldn't be a win for broadband - you can still negotiate down prices.

You can't compare car insurance to broadband as a product or service.

Doesn't matter what I pay or who I pay it to, I still have the same experience 99.999% of the time when I drive my car. I might notice a difference if I'm involved in an accident or loss that relies on my insurance company. It is also a legal requirement, I can't choose not to buy insurance if I want to drive my car, it is a boring product that I buy because I have to.

Car insurance pricing isn't like broadband either, it is based on your profile, postcode, car, claims history, driving record etc.

Broadband is a product that you choose to buy and has a range of quality experiences and choices that affect you on a daily basis - we buy broadband because we want it, not because we are legally required to purchase it.

The problem is consumers don't really understand broadband and just want the cheapest price which drives the suppliers into this race to capture consumers at the lowest price knowing that apathy will set in at renewal time and they will continue to pay it if the service has been ok because the consumer fears an interruption to service or has heard horror stories about BT / Plusnet / Vodafone / Shell etc on here so will avoid risking changing supplier.

Consumer behaviour has driven this market, not the ISP's!

Consumers are happy with a below par product even at the discounted introductory prices and that is the problem combined with the lack of choice.

Missing a few points here.

It is comparable to car insurance, yet even if it wasn't, on its own this is not an argument against the OPs position

Car insurance might be mandatory, but owning or driving a car isn't. I would say that the way things are and going, having some form of connection is more important than a form of personal transportation.

Yes you do have the same experience, apart from when you need it, which is what you said. You need the internet connection when you use it. Similarly you need the insurance when you claim on it. All ISPs give you the same experience when you're not using them, i.e. nothing. Same with car insurance.

In terms of pricing, only your profile might change things differently for car insurance purposes. Your location and needs do affect availability and pricing in both insurance and internet access. Not everyone has affordable fast access to internet available everywhere. So both are on par.

Consumer's want speed and robustness at low prices. This drives the market. It's the ISPs fault that they resulted in this broken system that urgently requires regulation. As someone put it really elegantly, the existing system is an "unofficial taxation on social anxiety", which is definitely something worth fighting against if we want to improve our society.