Black Friday is on Friday 24th November this year and is generally proceeded by a week of good offers on broadband packages, and with the 10 day notification period involved in a broadband migration currently is far enough ahead of Christmas that your migration will be all sorted out well before the long Christmas break.
Spring 2024 should see the one touch switch system up and running, which will speed up broadband switching and if it works as planned avoid problems of being left with no broadband when the new service does not work. We suspect that this could mean some of the larger providers who are worried they will see more customers leaving may use Black Friday offers as a way to gain a good number of customers who will be locked into a 12, 18 or 24 month contract once one touch switching is live.
Another reason to suspect that offers will be good is that the alt-net full-fibre providers are increasingly switching their focus from network build to take-up. So we expect a lot more offers from the alt-nets this November, so tease people away from an existing provider.
Of course, if you are switching make sure you’ve scanned the small print to check whether the provider has any price rises baked into the contract, since little point in switching to save £3 a month, if in April 2024 they raise their prices and raise prices by £3.50 a month.
All sales need this advice, if the Black Friday deal is bundling in a free TV, sound bar, games console or some other device double check how much that exact model is available for elsewhere and it is only worth having the freebie if you need it.
Sales people and literature is always going to push you towards a faster product, so when switching if you actually enjoy speeds of 35 Mbps today and have no problems with streaming or slow downloads you can happily look at similar speed products with another provider. This is important as we expect the best deals to be on the 100 Mbps and faster products, and it is all too easy to sign a 24-month contract for a 500 Mbps service that is cheap as chips for the minimum term, but after that is a lot more than you can afford. The sweet spot for households was around 30 Mbps four or five years ago in terms of the speed needed but today as TV streaming becomes more common on multiple devices in the home speeds of 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps are the sweet spot.
A final advisory, if you have an analogue voice line and are switching to a provider using the Openreach copper network, the phone line part will switch from old fashioned copper to voice over broadband, i.e. the phone socket to use will be on the broadband router. This is not a problem for millions of people since many just don’t use the phone line, but if switching a relative where you are their ‘broadband expert’ you may want to make sure you are around when the migration happens.
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{who will be locked into a 12, 18 or 24 month contract once one touch switching is live} – these 18 or 24 month contract should be BANNED! I think more people will be happy with either 1 or 12 month contract.
Why should they be banned? If people get a good price for that 24 months then what’s wrong with that? The thing that SHOULD be banned is the above inflation mid contract rises.
I’ve already decided to move. Firstly BT’s trick of increasing price mid contract by inflation plus a chunk does nothing to make them more efficient. Secondly Openwretch are useless. I warned them a dead tree was leaning on our line but they did nothing so next storm down it came and after 6 days they replaced the wire by running it through the same trees where a couple more are dead. So I had Boundless Networks microwave in Yorkshire and switching to SWS here. No price rise for 2 years and I’ll port the landline number over.
Given the choice I would rather have the peace of mind of a 24-month contract. As it means the price cannot go up in 24 months. Or that is how it should be. The fact the companies are just putting the prices up anyway and not letting me leave is the issue. If they honoured the 24months contract price for 24months I would be happy.
I remember a time when contracts were all one year and the price didn’t rise during the contract. I am quite happy with 2 year contracts, I love the idea of locking it in and forgetting about it. The issue is that consumers are unable to calculate the price rises when they’re sitting in the EE store upgrading 2 mobiles and switching broadband as well. They see terms like RPI & CPI which mean nothing to a person who wants clear pricing. Then the fact these vary, just adds to the mix. Somehow when all prices rise together, it feels unsettling and people are rightly unhappy. We need a better way
The UK had very clear VAT, pricing in stores, upfront advertising of pricing eg my car lease doesn’t go up 15+ percent. Given bundling of services (eg Virginmedia tv, broadband, multi room, Netflix, sky, TNT sports, multiple mobile phones, the pricing can be a couple of hundred. Chuck on 15%+ price rises that is SUBSTANTIAL.
I agree with Max, certainly about the 24-month contract, the prices may look great, but remember they will be increased twice, by CPI Plus 3.9%, so many not be so good deal.
I think even 18 months is too long, and all contracts should be 12 months. I thought we got rid of 24 month contracts and now they have come back. That is one of the reason I did not want to go for FTTP due to the long contracts, but now even FTTC have them.
They usually publish the date when in contract price rises will occur. Then, if you switch just after that date, you will only pay one month after the second ‘in-contract’ price rise of 24 month contracts and have an opportunity then to switch again if they do not cancel that rise. I suspect it is even better if you sign the contract for the original switch immediately before a planned price rise at the then current rate but the actual changeover occurs after that date.
Black Friday in UK is waste of time.
All providers should be forced to offer 12 month and if they want to offer longer at locked price.
CPI is an excuse this many years ago was never added it was factored in from the start the same with increases you didn’t get this a contract was a contract for that set price.
How they have been allowed to get away with this show ofcom are clowns they mention CPI % when they do not even know what it will be plus add on own amount last year most people paid 16% if not more.
My village is cabled by Gigaclear so I’ve just signed for £17/month for 18 months and waiting for install. After 18 months I think it is £47 but then I’ll probably switch back to Plusnet with a good deal as a new customer for 18 months if they still offer it. After that 18 months I can probably switch back to Gigaclear as a new customer and get a good deal. Sounds good to me unless I’ve missed something?