Survey Claims Quarter of UK Broadband Users View £4 Price Hike as Unmanageable
Over the past few months a number of broadband ISPs have announced an increase to their annual mid-contract price hikes policy of £4 (BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk etc.). But a new Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults, which was conducted during December 2025 for Uswitch.com, claims to have found that 24% of broadband users view such a rise as “unmanageable“.
Not that anybody needs reminding, but at the start of 2025 Ofcom began requiring telecoms providers to adopt a new approach to mid-contract price hikes, which did away with the old percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that sets out such price hikes “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up” (here). This made annual price hikes clearer and more transparent, but rarely cheaper.
In response, many providers later followed BT’s lead by setting out a new pricing policy that increased the monthly price broadband customers pay by a flat £3 extra from March or April each year (varying a bit between providers). However, as above, inflation has remained higher than originally anticipated and, partly as a result of that, many of the markets largest players have since announced that they will increase their annual hikes (e.g. several have jumped from £3 to £4).
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Suffice to say that there is a growing feeling among consumers that ISPs are becoming increasingly unfair in their pricing practices, not least by hitting those who can least afford it the hardest (e.g. somebody on the cheapest plan gets hit with the same £4 rise as those on the most expensive ones). The new survey estimates that some mobile and broadband customers could thus be set to face hikes of up to 13.4% as a result of the recent changes.
The survey claims that 24% of broadband customers would view a £4 monthly mid-contract increase as “unmanageable“. On average, consumers say they would only tolerate a £2.70 broadband increase before considering switching. But we know from real-world data that, in reality, only around 1.62 million consumers actually switched their fixed broadband and phone provider between Sept 2024 and 2025 (here).
Mobile users face a similar squeeze. Some 19% of bill payers say they would struggle with a £2.50 monthly rise in their bill, whilst 17% say they would not accept any rise at all. Finally, a third of respondents (32%) say they now spend more mental energy worrying about utility bills than they did two years ago, while 19% say they tolerate such increases but are also actively looking for a reason to leave.
The good news is that there are plenty of fixed and mobile providers that have shunned the trend toward mid-contract price hikes and instead used fixed price contracts. But this often comes from smaller providers and alternative networks, which are often unfamiliar brands and, in some cases, may not be available to every location.
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The Government did initially appear to be taking a tougher line over all this and even seemed to hint that the practice could be stopped (here), only to later retreat by saying they had “no plans to ban in-contract price rises” (here). Despite this, Ofcom have still been directed to take another look at the issue, although few people expect the regulator to tackle the issue effectively.
In case anybody has forgotten, before the global COVID-19 pandemic, it was often normal for mid-contract hikes to push up prices by around 5-7% per year (averaged), which ran for many years while CPI itself typically fluctuated between around 1% and 2.5%. Suffice to say, it’s hard to shake the feeling that some providers may have realised they can get awake with even larger hikes and appear to be continuing the trend.
However, it is still important to recognise that network operators often do still have to increase prices due to costs rising in other areas, such as for service provision, regulation, energy and the need to invest in new network upgrades etc. But it’s not strictly necessary for this to be done mid-contract, and such pricing only makes the market more complex and confusing.
On the bright side, switching between telecoms providers has been made significantly quicker and easier in recent years, thanks to systems like One Touch Switching (OTS) on broadband + landline phone or Text-to-Switch (Auto-Switch) on mobile. Consumers can often vote with their feet if they choose, but many remain wary of doing so.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Uswitch could make it easier for their customers by showing the average monthly price of each plan in large print in their listings, and using that to rank providers.
Instead, their listings continue to show the price until April 2026 in large font and the annual increase in much smaller font. Providers aren’t allowed to itemise the annual increases separately in a much smaller font, but uswitch still do.
If uswitch took a stand and started showing average prices prominently with the actual prices each year in smaller font, these annual increases would be less effective and providers would be less inclined to use them. But they won’t do that voluntarily because low initial prices help them sell broadband switches, even though they know it’s misleading and results in some of their customers facing “unmanageable” increases later.
Yep MoneySavingExpert do this. In fact on MSE it is the most prominent price. The billing schedule is printed in smaller print below the actual monthly price.
I’m not surprised. As I said at the time, £4 on a £40 a month package is still 10% With CPI where it is, how the hell is that justified?
With the price we have just been quoted by TT, £4 is nearly 20%. We had a 50% rise last year for sewage rates. I’m not one to grumble (you ask the wife) but it has to stop somewhere.
I’m glad it’s not just me! We received an email yesterday from TalkTalk telling us we were about to finish our contract, which got me searching for prices. I noticed the £4 increase mentioned, which even I could see was well above inflation.I will keep searching.
What times we live in? I waste so much energy on Utilities,car insurance and pensions etc.
I’m sick of it and all the complexities!
Where will it end?
Possibly if providers told people how the price rise is improveing the service in a way that they can see.
3 that I use, year on year do increase speeds for the most part, so people can see that they are paying for more speed.
Near me O2 might keep more customers if they installed more masts to reduce the problems of oversubscribeing, such as difficulty sending text messages for days on end
The press and media cover the issues around inflation and taxation. Perhaps those who complain just do not understand the basics of economics.
The annual price increases aren’t actually that bad if you get a good deal.
Example: $ISP gives us a deal of £90 off, with increase from 30 to 33 then 36. This is for 1gbps.
So with the increase factored in that’s a good deal for the package.
Some ISPs will, and do, haggle. We have never ever paid for a mid contract increase anyway, easy to get it binned off.
The service providers have no choice in the matter.
The government introduced the charges around mid-contract price increases so as to help suppress price rises due to its other policies, but the methodology is economicical illeterate and has consequently backfired. It is the government that should be taking the flak for this, not the operators.
Further, the changes to taxation in other areas have decoupled increases in operator costs from retail price inflation. So even if inflation falls, we can expect bigger price increases for the next few years.
Of course service providers have a choice in the matter. It’s entirely their choice.
Mid-contract price rises have nothing to do with inflation or business taxes. The total amount payable over the term of the contract is fixed at outset, thanks to Ofcom’s pounds and pence rule.
Service providers that apply mid-contract price increases are simply choosing to structure their contract as a lower initial price followed by higher prices later, hoping that potential customers won’t look beyond the initial price.
An ISP could charge £35 per month for 24 months, but many prefer to charge £30 per month (for 3 months until April 2026, then £34, then £38). It’s the exact same total cost, just made to look cheaper. Uswitch encourages this practice by giving prominence to the initial price in their listings.
Price rises for out-of-contract customers are a different matter, but those customers are free to shop around or renegotiate if they don’t like the price their current provider is charging.
‘The government introduced the charges around mid-contract price increases so as to help suppress price rises due to its other policies, but the methodology is economicical illeterate and has consequently backfired. It is the government that should be taking the flak for this, not the operators.’
Ignoring the irony of the typo of ‘illiterate’ this policy change was put in place within 2 weeks of the last General Election and decided upon during the previous government’s term. We get it, you’re not a fan of the current government and want to blame them for everything but awful as they are not everything is their fault.
There was nothing in the rules that said the same ponds and pence had to be applied to all contacts, just that the value had to be shown up front in £ and p.
It got rid of the unknown value of CPU and helps those who can’t work out a percentage. However, providers could legitimately chosen a 7% annual increase as long as they translated to money.
£25 basic BB raising to £26.75 then £28.62
£36 super BB raising to £38.52 then £41.22 and so on
Now that they are not linked to CPI annual rates these increases could also have been quoted on the anniversary of contract and not, depending on start date, in a couple of months time.
Why don’t they ban all mid contract price increases. Why not have 12 month contracts?
There are some that do have 12 months contracts, mainly alt networks, Onestream are one on Openreach that do have 12-month contracts.
Bt does as well, but you pay a small fortune for them, but that is BT for you and they will still put the price up in that contract.
Should be made illegal, but Ofcom is gutless. If you enter a contract to pay a certain amount then that should be it.
Regarding mobile contacts, I took the plunge and left the provider that I had been with since first getting a phone and moved to a piggy back provider with some trepidation. So for half the SIM only contract I was on I got a new top end phone, and unlimited everything. I don’t regret switching and recommend it
Been using Smarty for a few years now, it is fine, not sure if it will stay fine now Vodafone have something to do with it, we will see.
I don’t understand why people pay silly amounts to networks like Vodafone, O2 and EE when they can get a lot cheaper by using a MVNO.
Okay, i can understand if they are paying silly amounts for a phone as well, if they can’t afford to buy one outright, but if already have a phone, then just use a MVNO provider.
I will never go back to one of the main network providers and have a contract
£4 rise on broaband, £4 rise on phone contract x however many people are in the household. It all adds up.
Why is it so expensive in the UK, in Spain I get 600mb for £15 per month. Somethings not right
Starlink at 35 a month for 100mb fixed is starting to look good
It was the last government not the current one that started this abomination.
So, £3 to £4, another 30% government facilitated Inflation, no doubt selectively not in the CPI stats.
There is such a simple solution, contract is firm price for the duration, increases pegged to cpi only.
Atleast UK is leading the highest energy prices in the world highest train fares now four pounds contract increases it’s ridiculous why this isn’t stopped contract should be the price you pay……
A quick internet search reveals that neither of those things is true.