FROM THE INDUSTRY
will be hell.” Working from home if you haven’t got fibre is actually pretty difficult; video calls just don’t work very well on any other technology. There is a tangible fear of movement. I think One Touch Switching will take away a big part of the fear. I don’t see brand loyalty at play either; it’s not like you might be loyal to a bank or a brand of car. I mean, I think it is a good question, because is it loyalty or is it just inertia? The market is split between switchers and if you look at any industry, whether it’s energy, or mobile, or broadband, there’s a proportion of the market who are regular switchers, who will always look to shop around and move around. But there’s also a larger majority who don’t want to keep switching providers. And when they do, it’s a big decision, and I certainly hope they make the right decision. Technically, to a consumer it’s all the same isn’t it? We have so many points of differentiation and USPs versus, particularly against the big incumbents with the old technology, that it’s the polar parts in terms of products. But you’re right, in the long term, when you think forward 10, 15 years, when the old technology’s gone, most people will be more onto the new technology than. Within the technology, there’s different ways you can deliver fibre. There are providers out there supplying technology they built that can’t go faster. So, they’ve kind of got a challenge. Our XGSPON plan goes up to 10Gb. At the moment our top range is 3Gb for consumers. Now of course, only a small proportion of people take that. To give you the comparison, so our one gig product costs £26 per month, and the 3Gb, so for three times, the amount is roughly double that. Only a small proportion of people take that. But the price that we’re charging for 3Gb is what we used to charge for 1Gb four years ago.
My previous provider claimed I had fibre to the home but when I challenged the installer they admitted they were only connecting fibre to the cabinet. Of course. It restricts the speed and if I could wave my magic wand, and everyone was a more knowledgeable buyer, such as yourself, people would be able to ask those right questions. Well, is it really full fibre? Because of course, as soon as you start putting copper in between where the fibre ends and where the router is, then it slows down. It’s just physics. So, that’s one of the key ingredients for our piece. And of course the other part of the triumvirate of key levers is the service piece. As I say, we’re not perfect, we don’t get it right every time, but we spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy making sure that we’re not like some of the other players. I won’t mention names, but you probably know of other players and customers are not waxing lyrical about the service I guess, because as an industry, historically broadband, there’s been long wait times, poor response rates, all those kinds of things.
How did you get started?
Essentially, it’s community by name, community by nature. The start point was very much around social housing. Building a fibre network is a very, very expensive thing to do. It costs hundreds of billions of pounds to invest. Getting the fibre to the people is the difficult part, but it’s an urban area and densely populated, so there is an opportunity there. They might not have huge amounts of disposable income, but of course broadband is such an important part of everyone’s life these days. If you can provide great price, great service, then you’ll get great take up. Our strategy going forward is a threefold approach, which is we want to provide the best products at the best prices with the best service. What’s the secret of your success? It isn’t luck. We work hard every hour to deliver the best products and the best prices with the best service. Whereas most other players are struggling to get to one gigabit, a couple of players are starting to bring out more, but we’re still in London providing the fastest products that’s available. So that’s the start point with the best products. Best prices is something that we’ve just been very passionate about. We believe that as many people should have great service, great products at low prices, and we work really hard. Of course we’re great value. But what we do is we get an independent organisation to benchmark our prices against all the competitors and consistently month after month, week after week, year after year, we are considerably cheaper than the rest. We don’t believe in consistently having special offers, we just believe in having consistently low prices. That’s the key thing that we want to be known for, because we want to give that great value.
How do ISPs distinguish themselves when it just comes down to service?
If I think about the broadband market 10 years ago, I’d agree it has been very difficult for players to differentiate themselves. These days people do have choices and we have these weird conversations sometimes with customers, which is, “Yes, I know I’ve got a much slower service. Yes, I know I’m paying much more for a slower service and yes, I know the customer service I get is poorer.” So, customers do understand that actually there are differentiations on product price and service. There is often a sense of inertia to get people to move, there is a perception of risk. You said earlier, your teenagers give you hell if the WiFi isn’t working and that applies across the board. There’s a whole lot of baggage that goes with whoever’s responsible for the broadband. And therefore, there’s a keen sense of risk avoidance at play, and people worry, “Well, if I switch, is there going to be a problem? Because if there is, my life
And it’s fascinating that that’s what caught your eye and your attention.
Where we are different is we’re supplying fibre directly all the way into your home, and we own all the fibre, all the way, end- to-end. It goes effectively from the Internet all the way into your home. There’s no copper, there’s no slowing down, it’s a dedicated piece. So you get an amazing set. Why would you want to go anywhere else?
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Volume 46 No.3 September 2024
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