I have never been charged a cease fee since 1993. Is your experience a result of moving around between ISPs mid-contract?

In reply to a post by longedge:

I have never been charged a cease fee since 1993. Is your experience a result of moving around between ISPs mid-contract?

This is specifically about the 'cease fee' that is charged by a few ISPs when you leave (nothing to do with being in or out of contract), not the 'early contract termination fee' that most people get charged by ISPs when exiting a contract early.

If cease charges are a concern, surely the simple solution is to choose a provider that doesn't charge them.

No, I don't agree.

Yes, I agree with you

The whole history of this is stupid.

Early on in the days of ADSL, it made sense to make an upfront charge to start an ADSL connection, because there was extra kit required to provide the service. Some time later on, the charge was shifted to the back end of the contract in order not to discourage the take up of ADSL. I remember a lot of controversy at the time, including the possibility of some customers having been charged to get ADSL then being charges to leave. Once the kit was provided, there was very little cost to transferring the service to another customer, so very little justification to any charge either for joining or for leaving.

Now we have FTTP. The business case is not that customers want it, rather that it is cheaper for OR to provide. So the take up of FTTP is NOT driven by pull from customers, but but push from OR to customers [albeit for the most part willing].

Aquiss are right on this, the charge is a rip-off by OR, because it is not an end of contract charge for installing the kit, it is merely an end of contract bonus for OR. It does not reflect any real world model of the costs on OR, because it is not only charged on first customers on a line, it is charged on all customers.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I think customers should pay installation charges that cover the costs of the installation, rather than providers having to recover them through monthly charges or contract duration.

This would ensure people paid attention to the requirements of the installation as it was no longer "free", and hopefully result in pushing back where poor quality installation work was performed as there would be an aspect of "I just paid £80 for that!" attached to shoddy work.

I could see argument to push the cease costs on to install but on install charges/contract periods, it seems reasonable to offer people time to pay these rather than having to pay a huge setup fee which may sometimes apply. Setup charge could discourage some people from switching.

In reply to a post by seb:

Setup charge could discourage some people from switching.

Setup charges might arise in 2 ways - for having the service installed in the first place and for switching. I think that having cease fees has made it far too easy to conflate the costs. Plainly the cost of switching is far less than the cost of installation.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

In reply to a post by seb:

Setup charge could discourage some people from switching.

Setup charges might arise in 2 ways - for having the service installed in the first place and for switching. I think that having cease fees has made it far too easy to conflate the costs. Plainly the cost of switching is far less than the cost of installation.

Depends on infrastructure you move to. It may effectively be a new install.

As others have said, we've never been charged a cease fee.
Perhaps you need to read the T&Cs before you contract.
What might help is a requirement for ISPs to provide a simple summary document; like insurance policies:

• the service being provided
• how much you pay now
• while in contract
  
  • how much you pay monthly
  • price changes
  • what happens in case of service failure/below par service
  • charges on termination
• ditto after end of contract

Edited by Bushy2025 (Sat 21-Feb-26 09:20:12)