Cheaper FTTP packages (via OpenReach) - seen any?

Just a general interest post.

Following the news a few months ago that OpenReach were lowering their wholesale FTTP / FTTH prices from 1st October (for providers who committed to the plan) -> https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statement...

I wondered if anyone had started seeing better offers from providers?
I would have assumed there would be some, but I haven't encountered any as yet.

Probably a touch early yet Miles to see this reflected in retail ISP offerings. It was officially blessed by Ofcom barely a fortnight ago...

Even then for many ISP's that don't directly contract with Openreach, but say use BTW to deliver to end users, it may take a while for this to percolate through their price offerings to their customers. Even then there will be other quite fixed/lumpy costs (in the short/medium term at least) such as backhaul costs which may not lead to a sudden step change offering in their retail price offering.

Patience grasshopper. 😀

Patience grasshopper

It has been in the planning phase for a few months though (albeit only 'official' at the beginning of the month).

Now I'm pleased I didn't hold out for it and instead opted for the TalkTalk Future Fibre offer.

I'm also not sure how the bigger providers who use different backhauls (OpenReach / Community Fibre etc. etc.) will handle their pricing models. Will be interesting to watch.

Indeed it will be interesting and also from the perspective of how the AltNets and VM will respond commercially on their competing offerings.

Now the offer has been ratified all the "big" ISPs will sign up to the offer. There is practically no doubt of that. They cannot afford not to, due to the scale of the discounts on offer. There will be a whole trickle down effect, as the big guys often resell to other ISPs all of which will come into the mix.

It will be a massive boost to getting large numbers of customers onto the FTTP network. Which I believe was the aim all along.

Waiting patiently myself but hoping to see the lower prices before FTTP is enabled in our area - looking to be January 2022 (CFP project, expected completion date).

Would be nice to have the full Gigabit package for under £40-£45 - I think there would be huge take up if the pricing was around £39.99!

In reply to a post by slimj:

Waiting patiently myself but hoping to see the lower prices before FTTP is enabled in our area - looking to be January 2022 (CFP project, expected completion date).

Would be nice to have the full Gigabit package for under £40-£45 - I think there would be huge take up if the pricing was around £39.99!

Time will tell for how low they go 🙂
The wholesale prices are here: https://www.openreach.com/news/openreach-announces-s...

But obviously there's a premium on top for the provider's service. So will be interesting to see where they pitch that at

Maybe you will get a good deal in 6 weeks time when it will be Black Friday.

It makes me rather sad, peoples ceaseless search for the cheapest. You can bet your bottom dollar that these are the same folk shouting the loudest when they receive poor service, or a lesser quality product. These things are cause and effect.

I hear you, and agree for the most part.
In this case it's more about the recently approved OpenReach wholesale price reductions and whether they have started to filter down to the provider package prices as yet.

I do also feel that when it comes to OpenReach based providers, for the most part it really doesn't matter who provides the service.
This of course assumes they're able to bill you properly etc.

+1

My FTTC services from Plusnet and Vodafone have beem fine and they are amoungst the cheapest.

Many suppliers sell their products for as much as they can get. I suspect BT get away with charging more because some customers are reluctant to change.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

It makes me rather sad, peoples ceaseless search for the cheapest. You can bet your bottom dollar that these are the same folk shouting the loudest when they receive poor service, or a lesser quality product. These things are cause and effect.

While I partly agree, I have been with Plusnet for FTTC for the past 6 years and have had no issues with the service they provide and they are one of the cheaper providers. I have had several issues with my connection and these are Openreach issues with cabling and just the long line length.

Paying someone like Zen for a premium service won't have changed the way the issues with the cabling were dealt with for me.

For FTTP, cabling issues are likely to be far less of a problem (although a local CFP project has had village wide issues due to cars hitting the telegraph poles, promptly dealt with by Openreach!), so paying a premium for a service is not really all that worthwhile for a 'regular' user. IMO.

I personally just want to see good value. Even with money in my pocket I cannot justify spending £60pm for a gigabit service. £40pm I feel is around the right price point for this type of service and to create more uptake.

In reply to a post by slimj:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

It makes me rather sad, peoples ceaseless search for the cheapest. You can bet your bottom dollar that these are the same folk shouting the loudest when they receive poor service, or a lesser quality product. These things are cause and effect.

While I partly agree, I have been with Plusnet for FTTC for the past 6 years and have had no issues with the service they provide and they are one of the cheaper providers. I have had several issues with my connection and these are Openreach issues with cabling and just the long line length.

Paying someone like Zen for a premium service won't have changed the way the issues with the cabling were dealt with for me.

For FTTP, cabling issues are likely to be far less of a problem (although a local CFP project has had village wide issues due to cars hitting the telegraph poles, promptly dealt with by Openreach!), so paying a premium for a service is not really all that worthwhile for a 'regular' user. IMO.

I personally just want to see good value. Even with money in my pocket I cannot justify spending £60pm for a gigabit service. £40pm I feel is around the right price point for this type of service and to create more uptake.

Completely agree. In the olden days if you paid for a faster connection the chances are you would be utilising that bandwidth much more. When you are talking 900mbps there aren't many people who will be fully utilising that constantly, its just nice to know its there when you need it. But its not £20 more worth it.

In reply to a post by slimj:

I personally just want to see good value. Even with money in my pocket I cannot justify spending £60pm for a gigabit service. £40pm I feel is around the right price point for this type of service and to create more uptake.

£40pm today can get you 300/50, or even 500/70 (Talktalk).

I'd say that's fast enough for almost any home. Real-world downloads are likely to be limited by wifi capacity, remote server limitations and/or local device speed anyway. With 300/50 I can download a 2GB update in under a minute; if it takes 5 minutes to install it, then a faster download wouldn't make much difference overall.

Where FTTP makes a huge difference is for those on sub-10Mbps ADSL, for whom 80/20 or even 40/10 would be like night and day.