screeming at the cost increase

When I started with ADSL in 2002 the overall cost was £381.24 for a phone line plus a 512Kdown/256Kup ADSL service. Now in 2015, only 13 years later, I am fuming that it actually costs me £436.80 for a phone line plus a FTTC 40Mdown/20Mup service. That's an EXTRA £55.56 per year (approx. 15%) over the original cost more than 13 years ago.

Its amazing that technology changes and for an extra £0.16 or 16p per day, I now have a massive difference in speed. I am one of the lucky ones, but in reality the extra coms cost has been approx. 1p ish per year extra per day on the cost I decided to pay all those years ago. It is also interesting to note that the extra cost is in the telephone line component rather than the xDSL cost.

I think I would have paid the extra 15% then if FTTC was available in 2002.

It's actually got cheaper. That £381.24 is more like £660 after adjusting for inflation by the Consumer Price Index.

This is a bad thing though. I'd rather broadband cost twice as much and had more investment myself.

I thought the Broadband Tax was a great idea! Let the people fund it!

Not sure what you're complaining about. Since 2002, the RPI has gone up about 50%. And you've got an incredibly faster broadband connection - 80x improvement. So a 15% increase sounds pretty good. You could always go back to ADSL

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

It's actually got cheaper. That £381.24 is more like £660 after adjusting for inflation by the Consumer Price Index.

This is a bad thing though. I'd rather broadband cost twice as much and had more investment myself.

Unfortunately you are in a very, very small minority! 99.99% of customers want it to be as cheap as possible with someone else picking up the investment costs - the same people who complain when customer services do not answer quickly or work from scripts or when there is congestion, or their hamlet is not getting FTTC &c.

I detected a modicum of sarcasm in the original post.

It is worth adding that considering what we all do with our mainly limited connections now compared to even four years ago, data use and cost of backhaul/interconnects may be behind some of the increases.

Unfortunately you are in a very, very small minority! 99.99% of customers want it to be as cheap as possible with someone else picking up the investment costs - the same people who complain when customer services do not answer quickly or work from scripts or when there is congestion, or their hamlet is not getting FTTC &c.

Very well said indeed.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Unfortunately you are in a very, very small minority! 99.99% of customers want it to be as cheap as possible with someone else picking up the investment costs - the same people who complain when customer services do not answer quickly or work from scripts or when there is congestion, or their hamlet is not getting FTTC &c.

I would of happily paid more for Fibre (if we ever get it) or for better service, FWIW I went with B.T Broadband myself as I mistakenly thought they would be the same company as supplies the line, and cut out the middle man. How wrong was I ?! When I see other ISP's bend over backwards with Openreach.

I do marvel how BT have done the best they can sending data down aging copper wires.
But we do now need to have all this upgraded, hence I liked the idea of the Broadband Tax. Even so, it does look like the BDUK program will eventually cover most places.

You noticed. Yes for around the same cost we get so much more. It was surprising that the bb cost has gone down while the line cost has actually gone up. All the talk is about bb costs while no one is realy mentioning the fixed line rental costs. We have not seen any material change in phone lines, so why the cost increase!.

We have not seen any material change in phone lines, so why the cost increase!.

I would hazard a guess that it produces more revenue than increasing BB by a pound or three a month?

I've seen adverts on the TV for broadband but not an advert solely saying our line rental is the cheapest.

The monthly cost of billing is probably totally in the line rental element too, at the wholesale level the WLR/MPF is pretty much flat with a long term trend downwards. So its not Openreach charging more - but then maybe if they did the local loop might see better maintenance and more engineers

In reply to a post by iand:

We have not seen any material change in phone lines, so why the cost increase!.

BT staff get pay rises ... increase in cost of spares ... increase in business rates which are payable on poles, ducts, cabinets, manholes and even the copper wire delivering the service.

So its not Openreach charging more - but then maybe if they did the local loop might see better maintenance and more engineers

Who or what is stopping them charging a bit more?

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

Who or what is stopping them charging a bit more?

OFCOM - Under pressure from Service Providers to reduce the price they pay.

WLR is a regulated product, with OFCOM controlling what Openreach can charge.

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Sep-15 09:01:23)

It's not even a real cost difference. The price has gone up 14.5% in those thirteen years. Looking at data from the ONS, inflation (by the lower CPI measure) has been about 35% over those 13 years (more if you uses RPI).

So, in real terms, that's around a 20% decrease in costs.

The wholesale cost of a phoneline hasn't gone up, at least to any significant level, despite inflation (which is about 35% in the 13 years).

What has gone up is the retail cost, and for several reasons. One is that it's clearly being used by ISPs to subsidise the headline broadband price by increasing their markup. The other reason is that fixed line call revenues have collapsed. Those call revenues were used by service providers to subsidise rental costs, but given there's no longer that revenue, there's been some cost rebalancing.

In any event, the total cost of the package has gone down in real terms by something like 20% once you feed in inflation during the period.

You have to be very careful about falling foul of EU state aid rules. It's probably possible in the BDUK intervention areas, but I doubt that such a "tax" or levy can be used in areas covered by competition (like those where VM is available).

As is the cost of SMPF and MPF LLU

Those things have all gone up, but the wholesale cost to the division that does the poles, ducts has gone down, and even more so when you allow for inflation.

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

It's actually got cheaper. That £381.24 is more like £660 after adjusting for inflation by the Consumer Price Index.

This is a bad thing though. I'd rather broadband cost twice as much and had more investment myself.

And an element in that calculation is VAT, 17.5% in 2002 but 20% now.
The ex VAT then was £324.46, and now £364.00. According to the figures I saw the rise, June to June2002/15 is just short of 33%,
so that £364 is about £274 in old money!!!

CPI June 2002 was 95.5, in June 2015 was 128.2 - 34% increase; corresponding RPI was 176.2 and 258.9, giving a rise of 47%.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by iand:

We have not seen any material change in phone lines, so why the cost increase!.

BT staff get pay rises ... increase in cost of spares ... increase in business rates which are payable on poles, ducts, cabinets, manholes and even the copper wire delivering the service.

It is also BT customers having to fund BT bidding against Sky for sport.