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[kitz]

>> Plusnet charge £30 if you move to an LLU supplier

Yep, so migrating from Plusnet to Vodafone will incur an £79 fee that has to be paid.  Dear do for migration

[sevenlayermuddle]

I actually think we should all dig our heels in, and refuse to switch.   As has already been inferred, that would reduce overall operational costs to the industry.  It would also eliminate 'opportunist' additional costs, such as imposed by price comparison websites.

If(/when) it transpired beyond doubt that companies were making unfair profits, govt would be forced to act upon it with new legislation, rather than side-stepping the issue by encouraging people to think the problem could be solved by switching. 

Particularly with insurance products, switching can be very dangerous.   For example, if you switch car insurance and genuinely forget to mention some tiny detail, such the fact that your husband or wife had a cracked windscreen 3 years ago, and you later need to make a claim,  the new policy may void the policy and reject the claim on the basis of 'non disclosure'.  And shared databases ensure they will always find out about such things, but won't tell you when they take payment, they just keep it as a surprise in the event you might claim.

[Chrysalis]

Actually its something Ive noticed of late.   The ISPs are insisting on 'setup costs' (usually in the region of £50) regardless if its new or migration.

Vodafone do. (£49)
Sky have very recently started doing it.  You have to look very closely at the small print to find it but its either £39 or £50 depending on circumstance.
SEE now do (£50)
BT is £49, but not sure on migration as its not clear, but it looks like it may be.
TT is £50 currently reduced to £25.

It appears to be the latest move to claw back some of the headline grabbing low figures from those who switch.   Totally new fttc are about the only ones to benefit.

I found the relevant part of the t&c's on sky but thats for new activations not migrations.

From what I can see BT is the same as well as plusnet.

However they do charge for inclusive hardware.

The wholesale cost of migrations is only a bit more then a tenner, there isnt really any charge for them to eat up.

However non migrations are a different story, new installations wholesale wise cost a lot of money.

SSE charge on a new line (no surprise) or if migrating from LLU, if BT wholesale is free migration

Upfront costs
If you don't have a phone line you'll need to pay a 'New line provision' charge of £60.

If you need an 'LLU line conversion' to take our service there'll be a charge of £36.91.

You got it backwards kitz.

[kitz]

You got it backwards kitz.

Im not so sure about that.   

Several weeks ago Sky sent out an email out to publishers asking them to ensure all references to free switching and free setup were removed from all their products.  I cant recall the exact date, but it was just before they offered Sky Max.

Follow the link switching to Sky - here, Then from 'Switching from BT, EE, TalkTalk or Plusnet' re-directs you to their prices here, then expand the small print.

The T&C states

Sky Fibre free for 12 months: Subject to status. Upfront payment may be required. Available to new Sky broadband, talk & line rental customers switching calls and line rental to Sky. After 12 months, standard price applies, currently £10pm with Sky Talk (£0-£12 per month). Sky Fibre availability subject to survey. Standard fibre activation £50 for existing Sky Broadband customers. For new Sky Broadband customers with or without TV, £39 activation fee applies."

£10 a month Sky Fibre Unlimited: Subject to status. Upfront payment may be required. Available to new Sky broadband, talk & line rental customers switching calls and line rental to Sky. After 12 months, standard price applies, currently £20pm with Sky Talk (£0-£12 per month). Sky Fibre Unlimited: Availability subject to survey. Standard fibre activation £50 for existing Sky Broadband customers. For new Sky Broadband customers with or without TV, £39 activation fee applies.

Its only Sky Max which states

12 months £15 a month Sky Fibre Max offer: Upfront payment may be required. Subject to status. New Sky Fibre Max (£15pm for 12 months, currently £25 thereafter with Sky Talk), Sky Talk (from £0pm) and Sky Line Rental (£17.40pm) customers only. 12 month min terms. £9.95 router delivery charge. £0 activation fee. Faster & cheaper: See comparison at sky.com/comparefibre. Sky Fibre Max offers faster download speeds than BT Unlimited Infinity 1

There is a separate pricing link if you dont go via switching to sky which basically has the same wording except it doesnt have the word 'switching'

---
The SSE site is confusing and has conflicting info. At one point it was all free.  I had this convo with someone else last week about migration fees, theres was a pdf file somewhere which implied the setup fee is chargable for all and it looks like the current free BTw migration is only until Nov.
Its not even clear what happens after the 18 months other than broadband is chargeable, but no indication of the cost.

The wholesale cost of migrations is only a bit more then a tenner, there isnt really any charge for them to eat up.

I know and Im aware of this, which is why I have questioned setup fees direct with some suppliers, but they arent prepared to budge even if you dont want the modem.     

[kitz]

It would also eliminate 'opportunist' additional costs, such as imposed by price comparison websites.

An interesting side-track topic.   OFCOM seem to encourage the use of certain comparison websites.   The compare sites are big business and they make a decent income.   They get paid far higher 'bulk' commision rates.  Its why they can give cash-backs.   They also only deal with ISP's that will pay commission.  Yet these are the sites recommended by OFCOM - link

Andrew from TBB has moaned before about the unfairness of this and its a problem also experienced by Mark of ISPr.  I cant say what their situation is, but I know from clawbacks that I see, that people may start off here looking at ISPs, get info... and then move on to the cash back sites, who then get paid commission, whilst mine will get clawed back.

Yet the independents such as TBB, ISPr and myself have overheads - UK hosting isn't cheap, I know I dread certain times of the year. I've mentioned before that its a concern and I know the same applies to TBB who also need it to pay salaries. 

As the broadband compare sites grow it takes away the opportunity to cover any running costs and could cause the demise of sites such as this.  My time I put in for free but I cant afford to pay huge hosting bills.

A few years ago, I looked at using broadband choices to suppy compare info, they take a large chunk of anything you generate and are quite strict on their terms about ISPs you can mention and how many sales you have to generate.  As Eric could confirm, I backed out at the last minute as I didnt feel that this was what this site was about and it wasn't the direction in which I wanted to head.  Like I said Ive seen Saffy mention a few times that its a problem for them and ISPr too.
afaik we are the only 3 sites who try hold out and will cover not just commission paying ISPs.   It made me laugh just yesterday when one of the big compare sites said it couldn't find any Sky products.   (Possibly because theyve just recently had a change of affiliates?  - new logo out today btw)

I put my time in for free... and believe me there's a huuuge amount of time that you guys never see, so no wages to pay and the mods also do a grand job for free. However I cannot afford to pay several thousand £ out of my own pocket which it takes just for running costs.  There's 2 people that do help out so I'm not moaning too much, but it is a problem for the independents especially in the age of ad-blockers.

So in effect its the compare sites (and OFCOM backing them) that is also encouraging this switch ethos.

/rant
.. and also a heads up that I will have to look at alternatives eg because the site doesn't run on fresh air and false accusations of being paid by BT Openreach  

If(/when) it transpired beyond doubt that companies were making unfair profits, govt would be forced to act upon it with new legislation, rather than side-stepping the issue by encouraging people to think the problem could be solved by switching. 

Its all back to front.    If you are happy with an ISP then there should be no need to change.  It does not encourage decent CS when its all about driving new users, which IMHO is going wrong at the likes Plusnet.
When you offer dirt cheap 'new customer only' deals and free broadband, then something has to give.   Churn is not the best way to maintain a business if you don't care about the customers once you have them.

[NewtronStar]

Using Kitz's unblocked bander and clicking on it I see EE Offer: £1 a month for 18 months then £10 a month thereafter (18 month contract). Customers outside of our network area pay £25 a month. Terms and conditions apply.

As you can see I am outside of there network so the outsiders must be subsidising the insiders 

[Chrysalis]

kitz can i ask why u need to keep it hosted in the uk? i would think hosting this site shouldn't be too expensive as the forum is a small but loyal community whilst the other part of the site which gets most of the traffic shouldn't need much resources as its static mostly text only content which would thrive on caching platforms such as varnish or cloudflare

[sevenlayermuddle]

Yet these are the sites recommended by OFCOM - link

I wonder whether OFCOM receives any form of payment for linking to these sites?

I'm not suggesting anything improper is going on but in these days when the Met Office's website hosts Google ads for (in my case, at the moment) kitchen sinks, nothing would surprise me. 

[Chrysalis]

I dont think they would be financially benefiting, but remember ofcom's working ethos is about so called competition and low prices.

As far as they concerned new customer offers is a way to pretend everything is hunky dory so they have a brainwashed population who think its all great because all one needs to do is switch providers every year.

Ofgem have been working on the same principle when they decided to stop enforcing such deals, as ofgem did actually ban new customer offers but then backed out earlier this year.

[NewtronStar]

To be honest I would like to see OFCOM disbanded and put in a bin just a waste of money in the Governments and Puplic purse it's not working unless your LLU it has become a Discrimination policy it's putting a certain group above all others in price which can't continue as all ADSL and VDSL2 prices should be the same no matter were you live in the UK.

[Chrysalis]

LLU was a good system to introduce back in the adsl max days, and it still has benefits now even on FTTC as LLU is still useful for backhaul.

However ofcom have clearly gone way too far with their obsession with it. 

I dont think it can be disbanded tho as ofcom has to exist to enforce EU directives.

[kitz]

kitz can i ask why u need to keep it hosted in the uk? i would think hosting this site shouldn't be too expensive as the forum is a small but loyal community whilst the other part of the site which gets most of the traffic shouldn't need much resources as its static mostly text only content which would thrive on caching platforms such as varnish or cloudflare

Thanks I responded to your PM.   Unfortunately I think you may have under estimated some things.  I tried cloud hosting in 2012 - it didnt work, caused complaints and limited what I could do.   Total page content ~500 theres also a lot of .php includes
There is quite a fair bit of dynamic generation (ie front index page, most of the ISP section, and of course the broadband checker), a couple of the databases are quite large.

[kitz]

Just a point with LLU -  LLU backhauling doesn't really appear to be too much of an issue.  What is an obstruction is LLU ADSL.

If only there were an easy way to overcome this problem.   Wouldn't it at least be some progress if all DSL was from the cab.  I dont see how in the present climate though that it could be done.   Ideally recovery of copper to fund FTTP would be the best way, but again the issue of FMP LLU.

[Chrysalis]

Thanks for the info regarding sky's press release kitz, interesting then so it seems if its not the case now they are at least planning to start charging for migrations I assume as you said to mitigate the losses they may have from not able to advertise they way they have been to hide line rental costs.

[kitz]

Thanks for the info regarding sky's press release kitz, interesting then so it seems if its not the case now they are at least planning to start charging for migrations I assume as you said to mitigate the losses they may have from not able to advertise they way they have been to hide line rental costs.

They were already charging £39 for migrations for all fibre 40Mbps.  The £0 migration was only from 4th Oct when they released Fibre Max for that product only.

A note that the £0 offer for skymax has been withdrawn this week.  Activation fee is now £50 for new FTTC, £39 for migration regardless  if you already have FTTC with another provider.  This brings it in line with all their fibre products.