Contributed Article
By Sylwia Kechiche, VP Business Evaluation at Opensignal
In a market the place full fibre broadband now passes 82% of UK premises and cell connections outnumber individuals, buying genuinely new prospects is tough. Most acquisition progress immediately comes from switching, not from bringing internet new subscribers into the market. Each buyer an operator wins is each other operator has misplaced. In such an setting, retention is now not a secondary concern.
Properties handed don’t translate into properties linked
One of many less-discussed challenges within the UK is that a big share of customers already consider they’ve fibre, even once they don’t. FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet), FTTP (fibre-to-the-premise), FTTH (fibre-to-the-home), full fiber, superfast: the terminology has been used interchangeably in advertising for years, and prospects have absorbed the confusion. When real full fibre arrives in a road, it typically doesn’t land with the affect operators count on. Take-up of full fibre the place it’s out there sits at simply 42%, in accordance with Ofcom’s Related Nations 2025 report.
A part of the expertise hole is in-home. A buyer on a full fibre reference to insufficient Wi-Fi gear will nonetheless have a poor expertise, and operators who can’t distinguish community efficiency from in-home gear points can’t repair the best drawback. Operators are subsequently left with a multi-layered conundrum: find out how to educate customers about what they really have entry to, whereas additionally guaranteeing those self same customers take the best actions to obtain the total promise of the community.
What ‘good connectivity’ means
At Opensignal, we measure community expertise from the patron’s perspective, capturing “lived,” what really occurs once you stream, video name, or make money working from home.
Though I’ve spent 20 years analyzing telecoms information, after I’m on a Zoom name or attempting to video name my mum, I’m not fascinated by what expertise powers my connection. I care whether or not it permits me to do what I have to do, after I want it. Most individuals are the identical. We examine notes and complain concerning the moments when connectivity lets us down: the dropped name, the frozen display screen, the assembly the place audio saved reducing out. That’s what prospects bear in mind, and that’s what they act on when it’s time to resume.
Opensignal’s Subscriber Analytics product tracks switching patterns on the sub-regional degree, giving operators a view of the place churn threat is constructing earlier than it exhibits up of their quarterly numbers. It additionally exhibits the place the chance is: markets the place penetration of converged prospects sits properly under what the community footprint would counsel. Paired with visibility of competitor efficiency, operators can see not simply the place they’re shedding prospects, however to whom and on which metrics.
The information exhibits that retention threat is concentrated the place altnet FTTP expertise is genuinely robust and prospects have a reputable different. This isn’t a low-end market drawback. We’re seeing the premium finish of the market switching to altnets and Cell Digital Community Operators (MVNOs) too. Ofcom estimates 23% of UK households, round 5.3 million, battle to afford their communications providers. However even prospects who can afford to pay a premium are looking for the most effective mixture of worth and expertise, they usually transfer once they discover it.
Bundling is an expertise lever, not only a billing technique
The case for bundling is clearer than operators are inclined to act on it. Take into account Vodafone: practically half its broadband prospects already use Vodafone for cell, but the opposite half don’t, regardless of being reachable throughout the similar industrial relationship. Opensignal’s Subscriber Analytics exhibits that prospects who do bundle churn at a fraction of the speed of those that don’t, and the impact holds constantly throughout the key UK gamers. Bundled prospects are tougher to lose, they usually give operators extra to work with: extra expertise information, extra touchpoints, extra insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
So, what’s the trail to closing that hole? It begins with treating the broadband–cell relationship as an expertise query earlier than a pricing one. Operators who goal cross-sell primarily based on the place the expertise is powerful, quite than on the premise of promotional timing, convert higher and retain longer.
Sylwia Kechiche is VP Business Evaluation at Opensignal and will likely be talking on the Buyer Technique panel at Related Britain 2026, 10 September, 12:40, Keynote Theatre.
Be a part of Opensignal on Day 2 of Related Britain 2026 at @ 12:40
Buyer technique: Shifting the main focus from acquisition to retention
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