Broadband suppliers: why so little competition?

amanda1024

My broadband contract is up for renewal and I'm feeling disheartened by the paucity of options - I want to move away from Vodafone (speed is ok but have to hard-reset the router ~ monthly to get Netflix to work). It seems like there's less choice and poorer value than a decade ago despite all the fanfare of 'altnets' etc. - am I looking in the wrong places? I'm in Croydon town centre and pretty close to the nearest cabinet, in case that makes a difference. I get c 70Mb, FTTC. 

As far as I can see options are:
- Contracts baking in annual increases around 15% with the likes of Plusnet, BT, TalkTalk, Onestream, all at similar prices, all at the same speeds as I have with Vodafone 
- Sky come up top in the MSE comparison tool but when I click through their Full Fibre isn't actually available (which presumably means the £100 voucher offer would be void too, which puts them on a par with Now)
- Virgin claim faster speeds but similarly have 15% annual price increases and I've not seen great feedback
- Higher cost and slower speed options from Rebel

Where's the competition? Why are there fewer options for speed/cost, even within the same suppliers? Is it that Openreach means it's effectively a monopoly in disguise? Or have all the smaller/newer providers gone bust like with energy companies? 

vacheron

I'm not sure why Virgin has such poor feedback on many of the sites. I have been with them pretty much constantly since 2007 over 3 different properties (with a couple of 1-year departures to BT mixed in when they couldn't offer a good enough retention deal), and have always found them to be very stable consistent in regards to the advertised speeds and with high reliability. 

I'd ignore the in contract price rises as these are almost standard now. From my recent searching I only found one provider who actively promoted that they won't increase mid-contract, but they had a way higher initial cost than others and so would have worked out more expensive overall.  

The only way to get the best renewal deal in my experience is to sign up with someone else, they will then instigate the cancellation with your current provider, then you just sit back and wait for your current provider's higher level retentions team to call you back to keep you. 

Just this week I rang Virgin to cancel as my 125Mbps end of contract price is due to jump from £31 (was £25 initially, but mid term price rises etc.) to £51 on November the 7th.
During the call I was offered their best and final deal of £37 to stay. Politely refused and immediately signed up with Vodafone.
Cue an unsolicited call from Virgin's "real" retentions department at 11am the very next day offering a 24 month dealt at £16 per month for their 264Mbps service... which I politely took them up on! 

Neil_Jones

amanda1024 said:

My broadband contract is up for renewal and I'm feeling disheartened by the paucity of options - I want to move away from Vodafone (speed is ok but have to hard-reset the router ~ monthly to get Netflix to work). It seems like there's less choice and poorer value than a decade ago despite all the fanfare of 'altnets' etc. - am I looking in the wrong places? I'm in Croydon town centre and pretty close to the nearest cabinet, in case that makes a difference. I get c 70Mb, FTTC. 

As far as I can see options are:
- Contracts baking in annual increases around 15% with the likes of Plusnet, BT, TalkTalk, Onestream, all at similar prices, all at the same speeds as I have with Vodafone 
- Sky come up top in the MSE comparison tool but when I click through their Full Fibre isn't actually available (which presumably means the £100 voucher offer would be void too, which puts them on a par with Now)
- Virgin claim faster speeds but similarly have 15% annual price increases and I've not seen great feedback
- Higher cost and slower speed options from Rebel

Where's the competition? Why are there fewer options for speed/cost, even within the same suppliers? Is it that Openreach means it's effectively a monopoly in disguise? Or have all the smaller/newer providers gone bust like with energy companies? 

Other providers do exist than the "big" names you see on the comparison websites.

However in the bulk of these cases you will probably be paying more from the outset which doesn't fit in well with a "price saving" mantra from comparison websites.

And broadband can be provided in multiple ways now rather than down the phone line.  FTTP (which it sounds like you can't get yet) and mobile data are the two main ones.

Most of the Openreach providers just use an existing infrastructure, so if you have poor speed with one provider you'll probably have it with most others who use that same network.

twopenny

I found the same thing and posted about it recently. There used to be lots of small providers who were fine for us low users.

I also resented being moved from one provider to another which started during COVID and through 3 leaving my excellent provider for one I said I'd never use again.

Now they've successfully got everyone to need the net prices are skyrocketing. They reckon the older generation are not tech savvy but that's not true. Many of us can't afford huge chunks of money a month on a pension.

Interesting to hear about your experience. I had the same with car insurance. As soon as id moved company on cost I got an actual letter from the one I left offering to discuss 😬
I wonder if this is the new way it's going, using the 14 day cooling off period and them hanging on for those who don't want to change. You have to prove your going to do it.
Trying to beat Martin's haggle advice.

TheNorthStar

Openreach are basically a monopoly for the FTTC infrastructure, which is why all those deals you’ve seen look the same. But that doesn’t mean there’s no competition it just depends on whether the altnets have reached your street. Community Fibre are definitely active in Croydon, so worth a look. 

There are plenty of other providers too, it’s just a matter of checking who can actually serve your address. Have a look at the alt net options here https://www.fasterbroadband.co.uk/tools/fastest-provider

amanda1024

Neil_Jones said:

Other providers do exist than the "big" names you see on the comparison websites.

However in the bulk of these cases you will probably be paying more from the outset which doesn't fit in well with a "price saving" mantra from comparison websites.

And broadband can be provided in multiple ways now rather than down the phone line.  FTTP (which it sounds like you can't get yet) and mobile data are the two main ones.

Most of the Openreach providers just use an existing infrastructure, so if you have poor speed with one provider you'll probably have it with most others who use that same network.

Any suggestions for how to find these other providers? I've now gone through the whole list of smaller/local providers MSE list as not included in the comparison tool*, and not a single one is available in my postcode, even those that claim to be 'London' or 'Surrey' (although many are happy to take my contact details and let me know if they expand into my area - in the event that Croydon becomes rural or part of the North, presumably). I also see adverts for a few supposedly local providers on my way to work - Community Fibre, hyperoptic - but they're not available here either. If they were available but more expensive, I would at least feel like there was an element of choice!

In terms of other ways broadband can be provided - I can't see any way to sign up to FTTP (even if I was going to foot the cost). I've assumed satellite-based systems are much more expensive and potentially less effective in urban areas with lots of blocks of flats - but happy to be demonstrated wrong on that! I'm genuinely tempted just to up the data on my mobile contract and hotspot instead - but I'd have to figure out how to connect my desktop computer...


*Alncom (Northumberland), B4RN (Lancashire and parts of Norfolk), B4SH (Surrey), Brighton Fibre, Brsk (Birmingham and parts of the North West), Cambridge Fibre, Connect Fibre, Connexin (Humberside), County Broadband Fibre (East Anglia), F4RN (Nottinghamshire), FibreNest (Persimmon Homes), Freedom Fibre (parts of the North West), Fusion Fibre, Hey Broadband, Glide, G.Network (London), Grain Connect, Hampshire Community Broadband, Jurassic Fibre (parts of the South West), Lightning Fibre (East Sussex), LightSpeed (parts of East Anglia), Lit Fibre, Lothian Broadband, MS3 (Humberside), OFNL (some new-build homes), OGI, (parts of South Wales), Pine Media (parts of Sheffied), Run Fibre (parts of Somerset), Swish Fibre, Toob (Southampton and parts of Hampshire), Voneus, WeFibre, Wessex Internet, Wight Fibre (Isle of Wight), Wildcard Networks (Newcastle upon Tyne).
Also Cuckoo which a couple of these redirected to

TheNorthStar

Community fibre is the strongest hope for FTTP in Croydon. It's a postcode lottery game, sadly...

amanda1024

TheNorthStar said:

Openreach are basically a monopoly for the FTTC infrastructure, which is why all those deals you’ve seen look the same. But that doesn’t mean there’s no competition it just depends on whether the altnets have reached your street. Community Fibre are definitely active in Croydon, so worth a look. 

There are plenty of other providers too, it’s just a matter of checking who can actually serve your address. Have a look at the alt net options here https://www.fasterbroadband.co.uk/tools/fastest-provider

Community Fibre say 'Sorry, we don’t currently offer our service at the address you have checked', but I've registered my interest in case they expand into central Croydon.

I've tried that link and the only additional providers are 3, POP telecom and Direct Save Telecom - 3 is 4G (so I might as well stick with my current mobile provider) and both POP and Direct Save look to be over Openreach's FTTC (or copper) cables.

TheNorthStar

Can you get a good 5G signal where you are? I think Three sell an external aerial that you can install yourself, and if you’ve got decent coverage it’ll usually be far quicker than the FTTC packages you’ve been seeing. Plus it’s the cheapest option.

flaneurs_lobster

You haven't mentioned your dwelling type - do you live in a house on a street that has been FTTP'd or are you perhaps in a multi-dwelling block where getting FTTP can be more complicated.

If you really do want to explore getting your internet by 4/5G and you think the mobile signal is good enough then Three have a trial period available (actually a 30 day cancel deal). 

TheNorthStar

I've just clicked on the link to Three on the fasterbroadband website and it says 5G with an external aerial, not sure if you get the same results. But I haven't entered my postcode so it can't be regional. Food for thought it's actually better than what I currently have here