The 2021 lessons on pricing of fixed and mobile subscriptions in the Netherlands
Last month I had the pleasure of renewing the fixed and mobile broadband and streaming subscriptions for my family. I published the table below.
Summary overall; KPN (€ 1.720,71) is the cheapest per year for my family of four. VodafoneZiggo (€ 1.877,34) makes a good effort with big discounts, and T-Mobile (€ 1.864,38) has a great base offer on fixed, but fails on mobile and one-time discounts. The base price hasn’t changed that much over the years. In my previous article I paid roughly €125/month ex discounts for fixed and mobile and I still pay the same.
Summary mobile: KPN knows best how to deal with families. Such a pity it can’t easily switch existing subscriptions to a kids SIM. Vodafone is willing to do a deal and its bucket is sufficient. T-Mobile is too rigid and too expensive. Only KPN gives unlimited calls to EU numbers.
Summary fixed: At €50/month for 1Gbps and TV. T-Mobile has the best deal for fixed broadband and TV. It raises its price higher than necessary by charging for both an STB and recording. The other two do charge for an extra STB, but recording is included in the offer I selected or with the second STB. The other two offer significant one time discounts that bring them on par with T-Mobile.
Summary content: Content plays a role in the purchasing decision, because there are some discounts that play a role in the spreadsheet. Exclusive content hardly plays a role anymore in the Dutch market, particularly now that Ziggo loses the rights to certain sports.
Situation
Each year I renew the subscriptions for a year and I make an elaborate spreadsheet to compare the alternatives. I need one broadband line, television on two TVs, 4 SIM-only mobile subscriptions, with enough data and calls. There is no landline anymore, because operators charge extra for it and nobody called us on it anymore, except telemarketeers. This year I needed an extra SIM-card for my son, who got his first mobile phone.
I live in Almere, the 8th largest city in the Netherlands. Almere is fortunate to have two (three?) competing physical infrastructures, one cable network owned by VodafoneZiggo and the FTTH of KPN, who officially also has DSL available in town, but that network has lost all relevance and KPN is shutting down its copper network. The FTTH network of KPN carries a number of different ISPs, including T-Mobile NL and others such as local ISP Tweak. I have a wired indoor mesh Wifi already, but most ISPs offer indoor mesh Wifi to new subscribers and will run ethernet to the second floor if necessary. This is absolutely necessary as many homes are 3 story, with concrete floors and insulation.
All three mobile networks have enough sites near my home, to reach the new requirement of 8Mbps for 2022 (on 98% of the area of a municipality). T-Mobile is the closest with a site at 470m, it also has the most sites and the most bands active. KPN and Voda are 700–800m, colocated in part with T-Mo and some more sites at around 1000m. Indoor 4G speed is between 19–73Mbps on KPN and upload 9–30Mbps. VodafoneZiggo hasn’t upgraded its sites in my area, so speed wise it will be behind KPN and T-Mobile.
The Dutch market is characterized by significant bundling of fixed and mobile offers. Purchasing fixed broadband and mobile in a bundle generates significant savings for a family. This makes it hard for alternative providers to get a foothold in the market. The basic TV-package I’m not interested in additional sport packages. VodafoneZiggo used to be the boss on sport, but it will lose F1, NBA and Premier League football next year. Particularly F1 is a heavy loss as it is very popular and Ziggo Sport offered it for free to fixed subscribers and charged subscribers of other ISPs €17,50/month for it.
I’ve included some content subscriptions too, because providers offer deals on them. All prices are including VAT and there are no regulatory fees. This is what I get billed.
Approach
I first use the websites of the operators to find the best deal. Then I call customer service and explain to them what I need and found and how they compare to their competitors. I then ask if they have a better deal to keep me as a customer or to compel me to switch. KPN and VodafoneZiggo did sweeten the deal. T-Mobile didn’t, what they offer on their website is what customer service people can offer.
Calling customer service added roughly 50-100 euro in discounts over the online prices and some trial content packages that I otherwise wouldn’t have ordered. Reductions are for example giving the rate that is normally for a 2 year contract also for the 1 year contract. This saves €1/month/subscription on mobile and similar reductions. I only include price reductions on packages that I would have paid for and that actually are a reduction in family spending.
Mobile
I need four SIM-cards. The children need some data, but I like to be in control of how much they have, because they use 4G to bypass some restrictions. (We also have Google Family Link to completely lock the phone if needed). All operators have no surcharge for 5G. Minutes are hardly relevant anymore for domestic calls, but calling to the EU is a nice to have, just like a flexible roaming policy.
KPN is the cheapest at €61,75 per month. This is the special price. It comes with a so-called kids-SIM at €10,50 for my son that has unlimited calls and 1GB. Kids SIM is available for a year now and my daughter’s SIM can only be moved to that plan if it first becomes a prepaid SIM for a week, this is unacceptable in the busy life of a teenager. Unlimited data at €24 was cheaper than my previous 20GB plan. It allows me to share 50GB a month with the other’s in the family. I saved some money by moving my wife from 20GB to 10GB, which she generally doesn’t use except for 1 or 2 months per year, but then she really needs that data, so the 50GB comes in handy then. Roaming in the EU is 25GB for the unlimited offer. Calling to the EU is included.
Vodafone has a simple bucket called Red Together which increases with the number of SIM-cards and is doubled when subscribing to fixed too. 200GB was offered at €68,50, a 4 euro extra discount over the standard price. All users use the bucket. Calling to the EU is limited in minutes.
T-Mobile was by far the most expensive at €76, because it doesn’t have a family plan or shared data. For me and my wife that meant two unlimited plans at €26 and 2 3GB offers for the kids. The kids would probably run out of the 3GB before the end of the month, which is a serious annoyance. Contracts for a year are 1 euro more expensive than for 2 years and therefore it charges an additional €48/year. Calls to the EU are limited.
Conclusion: KPN knows best how to deal with families. Such a pity it can’t easily switch existing subscriptions to a kids SIM. Vodafone is willing to do a deal and its bucket is sufficient. T-Mobile is too rigid and too expensive. Only KPN gives unlimited calls to EU numbers.
Fixed
T-Mobile is the cheapest at €50 for TV and 1Gbps broadband. There are several tiers of broadband, however those aren’t relevant to me. If a customer has a mobile phone and is an area with FTTH, the broadband speed will be 1Gbps at €25/month. T-Mobile advertises with “unlimited mobile and 1Gbps fixed” for €50/month. Adding television is another €25 a month, which brings the fixed part to €50/month. €15 for the TV-service (including retransmission fees) and €5 for an extra STB and €5 for recording. In principle I like this offer very much. 1Gbps should be standard on all FTTH. It could have done better if recording and an extra STB didn’t cost 10 euro extra. The STB is roughly 60 euro and recording is a simple feature these days, though it may increase retransmission fees a bit, but the package isn’t worth 10 euro/month. Where T-Mobile loses from the other’s is that it is the only one that doesn’t waive the connection fee of€37,50 and has a minimal discount for the first three months (3*€15), which is almost completely lost on the connection fee. One scary issue is that last year T-Mobile messed up its routing by sending everything to Deutsche Telekom, whose routing is so messed up the Dutch parliament asked questions about the disruption to Dutch businesses, universities, schools etc. I previously wrote about this problem.
KPN charges me €65 for 200Mbps symmetrical including TV with two STBs. It’s possible to get more bandwidth, but I refuse to pay more for something which is cheaper for them to offer at 1Gbps to all customers, than to have the different tiers. The base speed is 50/50!, 200/200 is €7,50 extra over base, but on my previous plan base was 100/100 and 200/200 was €2,50 more. KPN has messed its pricing a bit up through the years, so officially an extra STB is now €5 extra, recording is extra, but not when you have an extra STB etc. etc. However, I used to pay this amount and I still pay the same, but officially it is a different offer. The simple reality is that KPN would probably save more on OSS/BSS than it wins in upsell if it simplified its offer. KPN offers 20 euro discount for 6 months and that makes it offer almost on par with that of T-Mobile.
VodafoneZiggo somehow must have realised that it’s €72/month for 300/30 and television with 2 STBs is just too expensive, because half way through researching prices, it increased its discount from 3 to 6 months and it said it would offer the first 6 months for €29,95. This has since then changed on its website to €39,95. The new price would make VZ €60 more expensive than what I have in the spreadsheet. An extra STB is €4/month and recording is included with the package that has the 300Mbit/s speed tier. The special discount I was offered made its total offer almost on par with T-Mobile.
Conclusion: At €50/month for 1Gbps and TV. T-Mobile has the best deal for fixed broadband and TV. It raises its price higher than necessary by charging for both an STB and recording. The other two do charge for an extra STB, but recording is included in the offer I selected or with the second STB. The other two offer significant one time discounts that bring them on par with T-Mobile.
Content
This is the first time I explicitly included content into the equation. This because both KPN and T-Mobile offer discounts on streaming services. Most streaming services are now integrated into the STBs of the providers. This makes them easier to use. Several of them can also be purchased through the STB and the ISP might get a kickback for billing the content to the customer. T-Mobile combines Netflix and Videoland for a 5 euro discount and KPN gives €5/month on Spotify family and charges a euro less for Videoland. In addition KPN threw in a whole bunch of content packages to convince me to remain a customer; 6 months of Ziggo Sport, 6 months of Plus packages, 3 months free Videoland, 6 months of ESPN football etc. Of these the only one I paid for is Videoland, because there is a show my wife wanted to see. 3 months Videoland is €28,97 which I did incorporate in the equation. All others are nice but represent no financial value to me.
Ziggo Sport used to be a serious element in the purchasing decision of football and F1 enthusiasts, because it was included in the Ziggo fixed offer for free. Other TV offers would charge for it. I am an F1 enthusiast, but I wasn’t willing to pay KPN €17,50 for just F1, so I took a year subscription to F1TV Pro. Ziggo also offers HBO content in the Netherlands and this content isn’t available on other networks. Next year Ziggo Sports will lose F1, NBA and Premier League Football to the Nordic Entertainment Group, which means it loses a major marketing tool. Rumor is that it will also lose HBO content. There would be very little exclusive content left for Ziggo then.
Conclusion: Content plays a role in the purchasing decision, because there are some discounts that play a role in the spreadsheet. Exclusive content hardly plays a role anymore in the Dutch market, particularly now that Ziggo loses the rights to certain sports.
Comparison to previous years
The story and spreadsheet of previous years are still available. Overall it seems I get a bit more for a bit less. The extra SIM-card for my son increase the monthly expenditure on mobile, but the effect is most profound on T-Mobile. T-Mobile is great for single person households, but the costs add up with each additional SIM and TV. T-Mobile’s fixed offer is great if you get rid of TV completely) Without discounts KPN and T-Mobile have a similar price for a fixed/mobile combo. Vodafone is too expensive on fixed and is only mildy competitive on mobile. KPN wins again because it offers better discounts than its competitors.
Prognosis for the coming year
The roll-out of FTTH is speeding up in various markets, with KPN, Open Dutch Fiber (KKR/T-Mobile), Delta (EQT) and smaller players; eFiber, eQuest, Kabel Noord etc. all building new connections. This week the 4 millionth FTTH connection will be made and by the end of 2026 over 7 million homes should have FTTH, with some having two FTTH networks to the home. Particularly for VodafoneZiggo this will be tough as it has roughly 2/3 of the market in areas where it competes with DSL. In areas with FTTH the market share of cable is 50% and sometimes even lower. Now that it loses exclusive content too, I can’t see how it can continue charging €15/month more than its competitors in areas where there is FTTH. Both it’s fixed and mobile network are in need of upgrades compared to its competitors. Discounts brought it on par with T-Mobile in this comparison, but it appears a particular discount may not be available anymore, which would make it €60 more expensive than T-Mobile.
I suspect T-Mobile will have a look at its mobile offer in the coming year, so that it better appeals to families. That and a slight increase to the discounts it offers and waiving the connection fee should be enough to leave VodafoneZiggo far behind and to be competitive with KPN.
KPN has been pretty stubborn with its fixed offer through the years. Only two years ago I officially had a 100/40Mbps FTTH connection. This is of course complete nonsense. The current speed tiers are symmetrical, but KPN makes it completely unattractive to get higher speeds. It could cement its lead on VodafoneZiggo by just offering 1Gbps symmetrical everywhere and be done with it. Productmanagers will be annoyed, for a few moments and then will come up with a plan to continue charging the average customer €60-€65/month.
