BT Wholesale Prep Big Hike in UK Fibre Broadband ISP Cease Fee

BTWholesale has warned its ISP customers that the cost of cancelling (cease charge) one of their “fibre broadband” (FTTC and FTTP) lines will shoot upwards from £5.37 to £31.12 +vat on 1st September 2015.

Apparently BTWholesale met with ISPs last Friday and informed them of the change, although they also stressed to ISPreview.co.uk that the changes would include some price reductions in other areas. Sadly they weren’t yet prepared to reveal the full details, although the new cease charge already shows up in their related Price Document (updated 29th July 2015).

The hike will affect all those broadband ISPs that offer related services over the Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) and Wholesale Broadband Managed connect (WBMC) platform to Market B areas (i.e. most of the UK, see below). Openreach also currently charges £5.37 for FTTC/P cessation and will probably follow suit.

Market B is Ofcom’s regulatory definition for the 89.7% of UK premises where there’s plenty of primary ISP competition for BT (e.g. you’d expect to find providers like Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and or Virgin Media available in the same areas) and as such the consumer broadband prices are normally lower. Market A (e.g. remote rural) areas can cease for free.

The cease charge itself is usually only levied against a customer when you cancel rather than migrate your service to another ISP after a contract has ended. A quick look around the market suggests that most ISPs already charge between £25 and £50 (one-off) for FTTC ceases, although they have their own costs to consider and so the latest hike could still be passed on to consumers and may push that fee upwards.

The full list of price adjustments is expected to be published soon.