Telecoms analyst firm Point Topic has posted an interesting new analysis of broadband affordability in the UK, which identifies the cheapest and most expensive ISPs for “entry level” packages by nationwide “small areas“. Suffice to say that alternative networks dominate the table of cheapest providers.
The study starts off by noting that 22.3 million premises (67.6% of the UK) now have access to a full fibre (FTTP) broadband network, which rises to 82.3% for gigabit-capable broadband (includes FTTP and HFC / DOCSIS 3.1 networks). In addition, some 7.7m premises were found to have access to 2 or more FTTP networks, and 1m were covered by 3+.
The definition of ‘Small Areas’ in this research is sadly a bit of a technical word soup: “Every LSOA (England and Wales), Data Zone (Scotland) and Super Data Zone (Northern Ireland), irrespective of broadband technology, were the basis of our comparison.” We could write a separate article on this, but suffice to say that they usually break geographic areas down into smaller populations – making it easier to analyse (e.g. standard populations of 500 to 1,000 household residents per ‘Data Zone’ in Scotland).
In any case, the results reveal that the lowest priced ISPs are all alternative networks (altnets) and the table is correctly topped by CommunityFibre’s ultra cheap £12.50 per month 35Mbps package in London, which is often promoted as a social tariff but is actually available to everybody (i.e. you don’t need to be on state benefits). But it also includes a few tiny providers (e.g. community projects like Tove Valley) and the odd wireless provider, like Zoom, albeit without mentioning the existence of data caps (Zoom’s £17 package has a 40GB cap). So there may be other caveats to consider.
On the flip side, when we look at the most expensive entry-level packages, the table is much more dominated by established providers.
Naturally, what’s available to you as individuals will of course vary depending upon your own specific location, which is why tables like this are often a bit of a moot point for many consumers.