https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/02/survey-claims-41-percent-of-uk-people-believe-they-pay-too-much-for-broadband.html?no_cache=1
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@revk @penguin42 it feels like you are having an argument against a survey question/set of answers.
The question was asked. Answers were received and published. You cannot apply logic to this, really.
But also, I’d bet there are some things you pay more for than you need to, but just cannot be bothered to shop around. How would you answer a quiz? You’d say “I overpay” and implicitly in brackets would be (“and I live with it”)
@bloor @penguin42 Sorry, it is more over terminology.
Ask "Are you paying more than you choose and agreed to pay?"
If yes, fix that under normal UK law, sorted.
Ask "Could you have found a provider that charges less and use them?"
If yes, fix that by, well, use that provider.
Ask "are you overpaying?", that does not really address either of these or provide any useful way to fix/progress.
Maybe "do you think broadband should be cheaper?". That may make sense to ask.
It was bad question!
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c) The continual need for large retail ISP customers to ring up their provider every year, threaten to leave, get handled by the retentions team, get a better offer, haggle, negotiate. All perceived relationship between "price paid" and "cost to actually supply" goes out of the window psychologically, at that point. And the unfortunate bore of needing to tread through this rigmarole actively dissatisfies customers.
(ends)
@bloor That latter paragraph summarises my comments to Virgin when I left them:
"After being a loyal customer for 20+ years, I'm at a point where the performative nature of contract negotiations outweighs the effort of doing so. Just offer best price to everyone and be done with it."
I felt better for getting it off my chest but it'll change nothing.
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@bloor That latter paragraph summarises my comments to Virgin when I left them:
"After being a loyal customer for 20+ years, I'm at a point where the performative nature of contract negotiations outweighs the effort of doing so. Just offer best price to everyone and be done with it."
I felt better for getting it off my chest but it'll change nothing.
@greem it’s a real shame.
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@bloor @penguin42 Sorry, it is more over terminology.
Ask "Are you paying more than you choose and agreed to pay?"
If yes, fix that under normal UK law, sorted.
Ask "Could you have found a provider that charges less and use them?"
If yes, fix that by, well, use that provider.
Ask "are you overpaying?", that does not really address either of these or provide any useful way to fix/progress.
Maybe "do you think broadband should be cheaper?". That may make sense to ask.
It was bad question!
@bloor @penguin42 Basically my issue is over the word
"overpaying"
To me it implies some wrong doing. When "paying what you agreed to pay" does not, and even "choosing a provider that charges more than some other provider I could have chosen" does not.
It really is a wording thing.
And I fully agree, asking "could internet access be cheaper?" or even "should". A very valid questions.
I think it will be over time, and/or, it will be better for same price.
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@greem it’s a real shame.
I had NTL/VM for over 10 years in my old town, then moved from Reading to Ipswich - they didn't even want the business due to a blocked duct and not having the same level of kit/skilled engineers as BT/Openreach.
I've currently got a business grade VDSL which costs a bit more than consumer (especially as its still got a telephone line on it) - although CItyFibre do have the duct to my house I'm wary to change as I can see the same issue happening with snags/delays - all the ISPs cherry pick the easy provides and struggle the moment they hit any kind of snag and there seems to be shortage of installation engineers for Openreach *and* the alt-nets, with high burnout/staff turnover...
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@greem it’s a real shame.
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@bloor @penguin42 Basically my issue is over the word
"overpaying"
To me it implies some wrong doing. When "paying what you agreed to pay" does not, and even "choosing a provider that charges more than some other provider I could have chosen" does not.
It really is a wording thing.
And I fully agree, asking "could internet access be cheaper?" or even "should". A very valid questions.
I think it will be over time, and/or, it will be better for same price.
@bloor @penguin42 Reminds me a lot of door to door salesmen saying
"you have been paying too much for electricity" - he may have said "overpaying" even!
To which my reply was simple - "great send me a refund. bye..."
When in fact I was paying what was agreed (well, not, in fact, but that got me a refund eventually, but not the point, and not something the salesman knew or meant in any way).
"overpaying" is a very misleading word.
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@bloor @penguin42 Reminds me a lot of door to door salesmen saying
"you have been paying too much for electricity" - he may have said "overpaying" even!
To which my reply was simple - "great send me a refund. bye..."
When in fact I was paying what was agreed (well, not, in fact, but that got me a refund eventually, but not the point, and not something the salesman knew or meant in any way).
"overpaying" is a very misleading word.
@bloor @penguin42 One reason it bugs me, and I know Alex knows this, is we, as an ISP are often seen as "a bit more expensive".
I sort of understand why, but also, I know that, for some customer requirements, that is not even the case - a fixed IP with no filtering is often a more expensive business service on many CPs, not us.
I am always very keen to ensure we are 100% clear on what we offer and for how much.
I would hope none of our customers feel they are "overpaying".
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This was posted on LinkedIn. I commented as follows (following toot) :
@bloor so glad i can get access to a social tariff and don't have to deal with this bullshit any more
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@bloor so glad i can get access to a social tariff and don't have to deal with this bullshit any more
@mewsleah @bloor its like motor insurance, about 200 sub-brands being offered but only a limited amount of companies/people doing that actual real work (such as building/installing infrastructure and supporting it, as well as the admin required) - a lot of "ISPs" seem to be just reselling larger companies offerings and it seems only about 3 companies do the last km work (Openreach, CityFibre, Trooli and VM, thats also subcontracted) and its a real postcode lotttery as to which one even works in your area..
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@bloor @penguin42 One reason it bugs me, and I know Alex knows this, is we, as an ISP are often seen as "a bit more expensive".
I sort of understand why, but also, I know that, for some customer requirements, that is not even the case - a fixed IP with no filtering is often a more expensive business service on many CPs, not us.
I am always very keen to ensure we are 100% clear on what we offer and for how much.
I would hope none of our customers feel they are "overpaying".
@revk @bloor @penguin42 for this happy customer, what you offer is customer support that isn't only allowed to follow a script. That's worth paying for. I've only had to contact support once in a few years, but I didn't feel that a single minute of my time was wasted, and the problem was sorted quickly. The cheapest possible deal in the market is only a good deal for a customer whose time isn't worth much.
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@revk @bloor @penguin42 for this happy customer, what you offer is customer support that isn't only allowed to follow a script. That's worth paying for. I've only had to contact support once in a few years, but I didn't feel that a single minute of my time was wasted, and the problem was sorted quickly. The cheapest possible deal in the market is only a good deal for a customer whose time isn't worth much.
@DrHyde @bloor @penguin42 Thanks, and sadly that is harder to articulate and guarantee, so customer reviews are worth a lot for us, appreciated.
In an ideal world we would have no customer support reviews as no customer would need support. A hard concept to fit in to any marketing policy
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@DrHyde @bloor @penguin42 Thanks, and sadly that is harder to articulate and guarantee, so customer reviews are worth a lot for us, appreciated.
In an ideal world we would have no customer support reviews as no customer would need support. A hard concept to fit in to any marketing policy
@revk @DrHyde @bloor @penguin42 support isn't just for when things go wrong! Most of my interaction with AAISP support has been along the lines of "Soooo... could you do this weird thing for me?", so more existing-customer-sales and account tweaks really
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@bloor @penguin42 One reason it bugs me, and I know Alex knows this, is we, as an ISP are often seen as "a bit more expensive".
I sort of understand why, but also, I know that, for some customer requirements, that is not even the case - a fixed IP with no filtering is often a more expensive business service on many CPs, not us.
I am always very keen to ensure we are 100% clear on what we offer and for how much.
I would hope none of our customers feel they are "overpaying".
@revk @bloor @penguin42 certainly not overpaying - I feel I'm paying a fair price, and I don't worry about a yearly price rise or a new customer discount to cloud the market...
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@penguin42 @revk @bloor being stuck in a choice between Virgin or a crap Internet connection. This, so much this. VMs creeping up of prices is apalling.
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@revk @DrHyde @bloor @penguin42 support isn't just for when things go wrong! Most of my interaction with AAISP support has been along the lines of "Soooo... could you do this weird thing for me?", so more existing-customer-sales and account tweaks really
@kitten_tech @revk @DrHyde @bloor @penguin42 Yeah, kinda related, I've lately had cause to consider gauging how good / worth-it a company is by how willing we are to communicate with (incl. read from / listen to, etc) them.
Speaks volumes, I reckon, how reluctant I currently find myself to contact one particular company from whom I actually need something concerning them; yet how happy I am to follow and contact you guys at AAISP about stuff that's not even necessarily to do with the business!
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@bloor @penguin42 Sorry, it is more over terminology.
Ask "Are you paying more than you choose and agreed to pay?"
If yes, fix that under normal UK law, sorted.
Ask "Could you have found a provider that charges less and use them?"
If yes, fix that by, well, use that provider.
Ask "are you overpaying?", that does not really address either of these or provide any useful way to fix/progress.
Maybe "do you think broadband should be cheaper?". That may make sense to ask.
It was bad question!
@revk @bloor @penguin42 The rules it creates are also bonkers. I have a £15/month 3 4G contract for a wifi/4G box and basically infinite bandwidth that's used as a backup and I've had for almost a decade.
Regularly and to comply with the rules they carefully advise me I can exit the contract and take their new one for £30
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@revk consumers are not rational actors, though. This is where “social economics” smashes into just “economics”.
@bloor @revk Systems hat on - there is no such thing as a rational actor. No actor understands the full context, and has perfect timely information. Not even massive supercomputer simulation systems making stuff like commodity decisions - because the complexity of 'the whole picture' is off the scale.
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@bloor Confused on definition of "over paying"...
1. "Paying more than they agreed" - answer simple, recover over paid amount via card, bank, court. Sorted.
2. "Paying what they agreed", well, that is not over paying... Maybe "paying more than they could pay via some other company" - answer, switch to other company, OFCOM and OTS have done a lot to make that easy. bear in mind, what you get from a cheaper provider may not be the same.
Is there another option?
Is either of these a problem?
@bloor @revk TBF, I was more concerned by the article showing a lack of stats knowledge: "...potential unreliability of such a small sample size..." for a sample size of 1000. You only need a sample of 400 or so to get the 'standard' 95% confidence intervals with a 5% margin of error over the UK population.
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@bloor Confused on definition of "over paying"...
1. "Paying more than they agreed" - answer simple, recover over paid amount via card, bank, court. Sorted.
2. "Paying what they agreed", well, that is not over paying... Maybe "paying more than they could pay via some other company" - answer, switch to other company, OFCOM and OTS have done a lot to make that easy. bear in mind, what you get from a cheaper provider may not be the same.
Is there another option?
Is either of these a problem?
@revk I guess the "over paying" is a situation like mine.
I'm still in the last few months of a BT contract. I know if I either haggle with BT when renewing, move to an altnet so I can get the same service cheaper.... i'm "over paying" right now.
