Inside a One Touch Switch

On 12 September 2024 the UK replaced a patchwork of broadband switching rules with one residential process: One Touch Switch. Two years on, the machinery is ordinary. You still have to choose a product. You still have to live through installation day. What you no longer have to do, in the usual home-broadband case, is phone the old provider and beg them to let you leave.

The shape of the process

You contact the provider you want to join — the gaining provider — and tell them you already have a service. They send a match request through the industry hub operated by TOTSCo, a not-for-profit company the telecoms industry created to carry those messages. The losing provider should respond electronically, typically within a minute, or more slowly if you asked for post. That reply is the switching information: who they think you are, any early-termination charge, kit that must come back, and what else on the account will stop.

1. You pick a deal and order with the new provider only.
2. The gaining provider matches you through the TOTSCo Hub.
3. Your current provider sends switching information, including any exit fee.
4. You consent to proceed. Cooling-off still applies to distance contracts.
5. On the agreed date the new service starts and the old contract should end.

One Touch Switch is a messaging rule for broadband and landline. It is not a promise of zero downtime, zero fees, or a government-run move.— OneTouchSwitch editorial policy

A realistic timeline, not a slogan

A clean Openreach-to-Openreach retailer switch, no engineer, matching name and address, can complete in a couple of weeks. Add an engineer visit and you are in the diary of a nationally stretched workforce. Add a new-build, a wayleave, a communal frame or a failed match and the calendar becomes a negotiation. Anyone promising “switched by Friday” without seeing the address is selling a mood.

What still sits outside the switch

The rules cover residential internet access and number-based voice. They do not automatically move a Sky TV box, a Virgin TV package, a mobile discount that depended on the bundle, a burglar alarm, a pendant, or a payment terminal. If any of those share the bill or the socket, treat them as a separate project. Ask both providers, in writing, what stops when the broadband ceases.

Failed matches still happen: a name that does not quite match the account, a flat number the losing provider files differently, a business product hiding on a home address. If the hub cannot match you, the gaining provider should say so. Do not invent a cease yourself unless they ask.

Where a comparison site fits

OneTouchSwitch helps you see what can be supplied at the address and what it costs across a year. When you choose a deal, you leave for the provider (or an authorised partner). They run One Touch Switch. We may earn a commission if you go via a partner link. That does not change the regulated process, and it does not make us a party to it.