Broadband suppliers: why so little competition?

amanda1024

TheNorthStar said:

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.

The better internet dashboard says 3, Vodafone and EE have good 5G here (I don't think my phone is 5G enabled so I can't check that in practice).

flaneurs_lobster said:

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). 

It's a semi-detached house, freehold, owner-occupied, on a street that's FTTC (as far as I know).

Do you have a link to that Three trial period offer? From what I can see on their website, for 5G they're only offering the Three 5G MIFI U50, which is either £249 upfront for a 1 month plan or having to commit to a 24 month plan.

If it's Three Home Broadband, this is what they say: "We can't offer Home Broadband at your address right now, but we're busy expanding our network to connect more homes." I'm definitely a bit fed up of seeing this on every provider's site.

TheNorthStar said:

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

Perhaps my thread title should have been more specific - why so little competition *in my house, where I live*! The wealth of competition in all the other postcodes isn't much use...

I should also say, thank you anyway - this is all helpful for understanding the (lack of) options!

TheNorthStar

Quoting the comment from flaneurs_lobster three's return policy is 30 days the information in the image below is from three. I suspect the 4G version will not be as fast as your FTTC connection although probably cheaper.

amanda1024

TheNorthStar said:

Quoting the comment from flaneurs_lobster three's return policy is 30 days the information in the image below is from three. I suspect the 4G version will not be as fast as your FTTC connection although probably cheaper.

Thanks - yes, I think fasterbroadband puts the average speed for the 4G option at 10Mb so quite a lot slower, which wouldn't be ideal since I work from home

QrizB

amanda1024 said:

My broadband contract is up for renewal and I'm feeling disheartened by the paucity of options ... I get c 70Mb, FTTC. 

It's not clear to me what you think is missing?

• You're in a FTTC area. FTTC tops out at 80Mb or so but reduces as you get further from the cabinet; you're getting 70. You should have the choice of a dozen or more FTTC suppliers and a choice of not-quite-80Mb or not-quite-40Mb.
• There's no OpenReach FTTP in your aea, so full fibre isn't an option.
• There's no altnets in your area, so they're not availble either.
• It sounds like Virgin have cabled your area, so that's available, but you don't like the feedback?

What option do you think you should have but don't?

amanda1024

QrizB said:

amanda1024 said:

My broadband contract is up for renewal and I'm feeling disheartened by the paucity of options ... I get c 70Mb, FTTC. 

It's not clear to me what you think is missing?

• You're in a FTTC area. FTTC tops out at 80Mb or so but reduces as you get further from the cabinet; you're getting 70. You should have the choice of a dozen or more FTTC suppliers and a choice of not-quite-80Mb or not-quite-40Mb.
• There's no OpenReach FTTP in your aea, so full fibre isn't an option.
• There's no altnets in your area, so they're not availble either.
• It sounds like Virgin have cabled your area, so that's available, but you don't like the feedback?

What option do you think you should have but don't?

It's the fact that I keep hearing that there are new developments and innovations, that there are more providers beyond the usual suspects, that there are altnets and Full Fibre and 5G and the future's bright etc. - but when it comes down to it, like you say, none of those are an option here, in central Croydon (i.e. not in a remote rural location), where it's essentially a choice between fewer than a dozen FTTC suppliers (unless I'm missing some? I see Sky, Onestream, Plusnet, Vodafone, BT, TalkTalk, Rebel, POP telecom, Direct Save Telecom, which is 9 - or 10 if I add Now but that redirects straight to Sky), all offering the same speeds at similar prices, or Virgin, or Three but they're only offering 4G. 

Over the last decade I'm fairly sure both the number of suppliers and the options within suppliers has decreased - most of the suppliers used to offer different tiers (for bandwidth and/or data) at different prices, now most of them don't seem to (only Onestream are offering not-quite-40). To me - that doesn't seem like much competition. I can't choose to pay more and get more/better or pay less and get less/worse. This is far less choice than I have for mobile, energy, groceries etc. In fact I now feel more disheartened, having gone through the long list of new and exciting sounding providers in lots of other parts of the country, and hearing what choices I could have if I lived somewhere else! But obviously I'll settle for one for now and hopefully the next time I'm looking there will be more choice.

And sorry that this is more a complaint rather than a technical question - but I did genuinely want to know if there were other options I should be looking into - thank you to everyone who offered pointers on where to look! I do at least feel like I understand this all a bit better now!

QrizB

Taking a look at the ISPreview list:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/isp_list/

... they have identified 226 separate ISPs.

Not all of those will serve you in Croydon, but those of the 54 offering "superfast broadband" who run on OpenReach are likely to do so:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/isp_list/ISP_List_Superfast_Broadband.php

Note that I don't think that table includes any introductory discounts, so you'll need to check the ISPs own websites for those.

Timalay

Thinkbroadband is a pretty good site to find any other alt nets in your area that'll offer FTTP broadband.  For instance, where I live, not only do I have access to Openreach's network, but I can also get CityFibre and a small ISP called CountyBroadband.

M25

The only reason there's been 'competition' in pricing is because the banks and so-called investors have been signing the cheques and as we can now see with the bankrupt TalkTalk they want that money back. TalkTalk and [enter your company here] don't have any money so we'll have to make up the difference.

There is undoubtedly real technical competition with altnets but again the banks are underwriting that for just enough time to get their money back from someone even dafter to buy up their customer base and add even more debt.

The indebtedness of the industry is shocking.

Once BT sell off OpenReach they'll likely be 1 of only 2 or 3 network providers in 10 years. Openreach will eventually end up back at the tax-payer's door.

We have a game of musical chairs.

prowla

I have three infrastructure options in my area: Virgin, BT/Openreach based, and City Fibre; the latter two each have a number of providers offering services over them.

I'm in my second year with Zen and they didn't do a price increase on contract renewal at the end of the first year.

I also keep my Virgin network going as a back-up (I work from home), but I've downgraded it proiportionally with their price increases.

I have found Virgin to be a good service, until you need to talk to them; then they are awful and my experience is that it takes 3 or more calls (each with ~1 hour on hold) to get through to someone who is actually interested in resolving your issue.

iniltous

The OP complaint seems to be why don’t they have access to an alternative network , it’s a little disingenuous to say there is no competition when they have massive amounts of competing ISPs available…..

The reason , almost certainly why they have no Alt Net available is the way Alt Nets look at areas they are to cover , generally Alt Nets only are interested in the most ‘profitable’ areas , these are areas they can serve for very little cost , and that usually means using PIA, physical infrastructure access , the regulator OFCOM rule that allows them extremely cheap access to Openreach infrastructure (  at a peppercorn rent , often a few pennies per year ) , if they actually need to spend any significant sum in providing their own infrastructure in an area they don’t bother.

It’s  a reasonable assumption that the Openreach infrastructure in the OP’s area  is probably of the wrong type (direct buried cables rather than ducts ) for the Alt Net industry to use  , housing built from the 1960’s through to the very early 1990’s generally was DIG (direct in ground ) cables , so unlike other areas with ducts and or poles , their area has no cheap and easy OR assets to exploit , these  practically have zero cost for the Alt Net ,  they can put their cables in Openreach ducts and up Openreach poles practically for free , but especially now , with the financial backers of Alt Nets feeling the financial pinch , increased interest on borrowed money , they wait until OR have upgraded these DIG areas so they can then  parasitically use the newly installed Openreach ducts , Openreach however have latterly wised up and changed their own policy ,and won’t upgrade DIG areas very often , in part to stop this parasitic practice from Alt Nets  , and you end up with a ‘Mexican stand off’ , where OR wont build new ducted infrastructure as its gives the Alt Net an even bigger advantage over them , ( its easy to be cheap if you don’t have to pay out thousands of £££’s digging up roads ) and Alt Nets will wait until Openreach does the expensive work , the Alt Net won’t build because their entire business model is to leech off Openreach infrastructure , hence the lack of an Alt Net until OR spend money , but OR won’t spend money to give the Alt Net an even bigger ‘leg up’ .

Its somewhat  ironic that the reason Alt Nets are cheaper than Openreach (and Virgin)  is because they get to use Openreach infrastructure at extremely cheap rates , and the reason the OP probably won’t get an Alt Net is the near future, is because to be cheap they are not interested in areas like where the OP lives where they would need to spend large sums of money .
Until  OR upgrade the infrastructure in the OP’s area ( which probably won’t be in the near future )  , the Alt Nets  the OP wants to use , will concentrate on the easy pickings that other areas offer and not bother with the OP’s location.