Government Tells Big UK ISPs to Promote Social Broadband Tariffs

[dutchman]

The Government’s Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, has increased the pressure on big UK ISPs by calling on them to put more effort into promoting the existence of cheaper “social tariffs” for home broadband, which are usually offered to those who may be unemployed or on certain benefits.

A number of broadband ISPs currently offer low cost social tariffs, including BT (Home Essentials), Virgin Media (Essential Broadband), Hyperoptic (Fair Fibre Plans), KCOM (Flex) and G.Network (Essential Fibre). But Ofcom recently revealed (here) that – out of an estimated 4.2 million households in receipt of Universal Credit – just 55,000 homes have taken such a package (1.2% of those eligible).

One of the biggest and most well-known challenges on this front has been the sheer lack of consumer awareness around the existence of such tariffs (Ofcom found that 84% of benefits recipients are unaware that social tariffs even exist). Broadband ISPs, perhaps understandably, tend not to openly promote these plans alongside their main products and instead hide their social tariffs away on separate pages, which require more effort to uncover.

The regulator recently urged providers to tackle this by making such tariffs “more prominent” on their websites and promoting them alongside “any communications … about price rises“, while also making it easier for such consumers to sign-up. Nadine Dorries has now reinforced this message in a new letter to the bosses of BT, Virgin Media (VMO2), KCOM and others.

The culture secretary added that she wanted the associated broadband ISPs to, among other things, clearly outline their plans for drawing more attention to any concessions and to provide their estimates of take-up over the coming 12 months (answering that last one with any accuracy will be very difficult).

Ofcom has maintained the threat of mandatory regulated social tariffs if ISPs fail to adapt, although it naturally makes more sense to focus on the underlying challenge of awareness before we get into the tedious question of enforced tariffs for all ISPs. Smaller providers, especially those deploying new FTTP networks at great cost, are likely to struggle with the latter.

Admittedly, in the grander scheme of things, broadband connectivity is only a small slice of household expenditure compared with the now much more significant costs and prices rises being seen across food, fuel (petrol, diesel) and energy (electric, gas) etc.

The Government itself could perhaps also do more, such as my highlighting the existence of such tariffs in their communications to those on benefits.

NOTE: The regulator states that a standard commercial broadband package costs an unemployed person claiming Universal Credit an average of £27 per month – 8.3% of their monthly disposable income. A £15 social tariff would almost halve their broadband costs and use up 4.6% of disposable income.