Report back: first Social Tariff roundtable with ISPs

We had our first roundtable with internet service providers yesterday to understand the route to achieving a social tariff on broadband. The Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA) helped us pull together a group of internet companies, including the big brands we all know of and the increasing number of smaller ‘challenger’ brands, who primarily operate in city or rural areas rolling out fibre to the premises.

Some of the big brand providers, such as BT and Virgin Media, raised their existing ‘social tariff equivalent’ products. Others noted the role they play in helping customers in financial difficulty, in line with their existing obligations to the regulator Ofcom for vulnerable customers. Other providers said it was difficult for them to provide a low cost broadband package because they have to pay Openreach (or KCOM in Hull) for access to their network, although there was some push back on this given all internet service providers have to do this.

There was some concern from the smaller providers that an industry wide regulatory approach to providing a social tariff could make it harder for them to provide innovative solutions in their particular circumstances, compared to the big national brands.

The main issue that the APPG will take forward following this initial roundtable is how internet companies can validate if a customer is in receipt of universal credit, in order to be eligible for the social tariff.

Today, BT and Virgin Media both have to engage with the Department for Work and Pensions before approving the broadband order. For BT, customers have to complete a paper based form which goes to the DWP before going to BT (this is clearly time consuming and not ideal). For Virgin Media, the team there have to speak directly to officials at the DWP before confirming their customers order.

In an ideal world, companies would be able to automate this validation so that customers can order a social tariff easily and quickly either online or over the telephone.

We will therefore take this forward with Ministers and Officials at the DWP and the Government Digital Service to see how we can fix this problem.

All of the internet service providers felt they could meet the social need of a social tariff for families who need it without the need for the regulator to get involved. So we’ll return to the companies in due course to see how they’re getting on.