Ofcom’s Annual Pricing Trends report 2020
Ofcom has published pricing trends for residential phone, mobile, broadband and TV in the UK in 2020. The data shows that broadband and mobile customers are benefiting from better services and lower pricing:
- The average amount of broadband data households used increased by 342%.
- The average download speed increased by 178%.
- The average new customer prices for superfast broadband and landline bundles were 20% cheaper in real terms compared with 2015.
- The average cost of mobile services, based on average use across all mobile users, was over 20% cheaper in real terms than in 2015
- 4% of broadband users (around a million) took a standalone broadband service in November 2020 (no fixed line).
- 75% of traditional pay-TV services are bought as part of a bundle.
- 24% of households said they had switched either their fixed landline, mobile, broadband or pay-TV service in the previous 12 months.
- Several fixed telecoms providers offer targeted discounted tariffs (on a voluntary basis) for people with affordability issues.
During the pandemic, providers have been offering support to ensure that vulnerable households could get connected to the services they needed to access home learning and information resources. This included providers zero-rating data to a number of educational services and websites to help inclusive allowances go further, and giving additional data to support disadvantaged children and NHS staff. The BBC launched an extensive educational initiative to help ensure that students had the opportunity to continue to follow the appropriate core parts of the national curriculum online.