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Over four months have now passed since mobile operator giffgaff, which is owned by Telefónica UK, become the only other retail ISP after Virgin Media (O2) to start selling fixed broadband packages over nexfibre’s new full fibre (FTTP) network (here). But despite this welcome development, customers on Virgin Media are still struggling to switch.
Just to recap. Nexfibre was established a few years ago as part of a £4.5bn joint venture between Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners (here). The operator has since built FTTP to cover 2.5 million premises – supported by Virgin Media’s engineers (Telefónica is also co-owner of VMO2). But the operator’s original plan to cover “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) recently stalled and future build remains uncertain (here).
Despite the uncertain climate, many of those covered by nexfibre’s network welcomed the arrival of giffgaff’s service, not least because they appear to have adopted simpler packages with clearer pricing, as well as short (flexible) monthly contracts and the ability to use a third-party router directly from the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) on your wall (officially this is NOT yet supported, but various customers say it works).
However, it wasn’t long before some interested consumers, who happened to still be customers of Virgin Media in the same nexfibre areas, found that they were unable to order and directly switch to giffgaff’s service (giffgaff’s support staff also echoed this). The only way around this was to cancel their Virgin Media connection first and then place an order for giffgaff’s service as a new line, which is far from the smoothest thing to do and often involves some downtime.
Speculation has been rife about the reasons for this. Some people suggested it could be down to limitations of their order management system / processes and others have indicated it may be more of a competitive decision, such as to avoid giffgaff hoovering up Virgin Media’s existing base with ease. Initially we thought it was just a post-launch teething issue, but the problem remains today and continues to attract complaints.
A spokesperson for VMO2 told ISPreview:
“There’s nothing preventing Virgin Media customers from switching to giffgaff, it’s just not currently a fully automated switching experience. We are working on a solution which we hope to have live soon.”
The above should perhaps be considered a joint statement, since it was given with the approval of giffgaff, although it’s currently unclear how long it will take to resolve the issue. In the meantime those in this boat who wish to switch to giffgaff will need to follow the manual cancellation route and all the extra hassles that may entail.