New Bill Aims to Stop Mid-Contract Price Rises on UK Broadband and Mobile
The Conservative MP for Hinckley and Bosworth, Dr Luke Evans (Shadow Health Minister), has tabled a new Private Members Bill (PMB) that seeks to “prohibit” mobile, landline (phone) and broadband providers from increasing their prices mid-way through your contract. But it’s chances of becoming law are fairly slim.
The issue centres around Ofcom’s January 2025 changes (here), which required telecoms providers to improve pricing transparency by adopting a new approach to mid-contract price hikes. The change did away with the old and sometimes confusing percentage and inflation-based model – replacing it with one that required providers to set out such price rises “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up”.
On the surface this seemed like a good idea, but it also made it more difficult for communication providers to balance price rises across lots of different packages, which resulted in many of them adopting a flat price rise instead (usually increasing by c.£2 to £5 per month each year) – set at the same level for every package.
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The catch is that this approach ends up hitting those on the cheapest broadband and mobile packages the hardest (i.e. if you pay £20/month then a £4 rise equates to a 20% price hike each year), while only giving a reprieve to the smaller portion of consumers who take more expensive packages (e.g. if you pay £60 then a £4 rise equates to a 6.67% increase) – not very fair to those on cheaper packages. A recent study confirmed that, when compared with the old policy, this had indeed inflated prices for most consumers (here).
The New Private Members Bill
The ‘Telecommunications (Fixed-term Contracts) Bill‘, as tabled by Dr Luke Evans MP, seeks to address this problem by banning mid-contract hikes in law and describes itself as follows: “A Bill to prohibit the increasing of charges payable under certain fixed-term telecommunications contracts within the duration of those contracts; and for connected purposes.”
At the time of writing this bill is still in its early stages and so hasn’t yet been fully drafted (i.e. it’s not yet fully published for the public), which makes it tricky to analyse. However, the reality is that only a minority of Private Members Bills ever become law (they can be tabled by any MP, not only those from the Government), but they do often serve a purpose by creating publicity around an issue and encouraging wider debate.
The key things to watch thus centre around how much support the new Bill picks up from other MPs as it progresses and whether its provisions are focused on consumers or also extend to businesses, as well as other areas of service provision (e.g. optional paid add-ons or calling charges). We suspect it would not be workable to include optional extras or call charges, as well as business connections, but that doesn’t mean to say the bill won’t try.
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In addition, it’s worth remembering that broadband, phone and mobile providers are NOT immune to cost increases. Providers, much like consumers, are also suffering under the burden of rising supplier (e.g. wholesale) and lease costs, high inflation, high energy prices, the cost of adding all sorts of new services (e.g. FTTP) and catering for new regulations etc.
So, if providers can’t raise their prices mid-contract (spreading their risk to consumers), then they’ll probably front-load them instead, which may raise the general pricing of packages across the market to balance against the risk they take over longer terms. But we imagine that competition would still ensure plenty of diversity and choice, while pricing would also be a lot clearer for consumers.
The reality is that providers, at least among most of the largest market players (not all providers adopt mid-contract hikes), currently seem to be abusing Ofcom’s policy to increase consumer prices in a way that is now unfair – particularly for those least able to afford the most expensive plans. One way or another, this needs to be addressed. Credits to Ben for spotting the bill.
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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The term “mid-contract” price increase is a misnomer as it can occur within months of starting the contract due to ISPs increasing for all customers on a particular month every year. Hence many customers experience two price increases over a two year contract.
If they really insist on doing this there should only be an increase on the anniversary of the contract starting.
How about the contracted price is the contracted price? Right now it is madness, not only does it increase during the contract but also after the contract. The only way to avoid is to just switch provider
can’t use the excuse of we can’t absorb some of the increased costs with in the 24 month contract because if thats the case they should only be doing 12 month contracts instead
They won’t need to. That £18 broadband deal which rises to £22 mid-contract will simply be £20 from the start. Or they’ll re-frame it as a discount. Special offer 22% introductory discount: £18 for 12 months then £22. I don’t know why providers don’t do that already as it doesn’t seem to attract half as much ire as this mid-contract price rise framing despite being functionally equivalent. I guess it’s been shown to give better results.
I think it’s largely irrelevant that they display the price increases. If I enter a 2-year contract and agreed to pay £10/month, it should stay fixed at this price for the 2-years isn’t that mostly the point in a having a contract in the first place? But again the customer is expected to stay loyal while the provider can shift the goalposts whenever they please. If provider’s were any good they’d do away with contracts in the first place and rely solely on their upstanding customer service and pricing to gain customer retention, but I see where the fundamental flaw in that logic is…
100% agree. A fixed-term contract should have a fixed price for the duration of the contract. If it’s 30 days, 12 month or 24 months long then that’s the period for which the customer pays the agreed price for.
Costs can go up for businesses, sure, just like they go up for absolutely everyone. You need to build that risk into the contract prices and periods that you offer. End of.
‘If I enter a 2-year contract and agreed to pay £10/month, it should stay fixed at this price for the 2-years’…
Yes. That is the whole point in having a contract. But you’re NOT signing up for that. You’re agreeing to a price of (in this case) £10/month for the first X months, and then £12/month for the next X months, and so on. Nobody is forcing you to do that. If the providers weren’t being clear about the pricing and any changes to it, that’d be one thing, but they are.
I guess the thing to do is lobby your local MP to support the bill and raise it up as important to the people who vote for them.
We really need to get back to 12 month fixed contracts and if they need to increase prices you should have the option to leave the contract and go somewhere else for your internet connection.
To me it’s the Internet Service Providers that need to be addressed – I suspect there is less concern around mobile contract where it’s as much a HP agreement for the phone as a service contract…
The two products (Broadband & Mobile) should be controlled separately and not lumped together.
This situation is a new phenomenon which started by one company trying it, seeing what they could get away with, then the others spotted it and adopted it. Then Ofcom tried to intervene and it went wrong, they put in place something that sounded good but appeared to use the old gentleman’s approach that companies would be honourable without factoring in VMO2 and Vodafone particularly want more income to balance their books (not forgetting VMO2 haemorrhaging customers in December and having to apologise to shareholders which was a direct result of their price hikes, something I think they thought consumer inertia would cushion them from).
We aren’t in the old days of British Telecom or Racial and Cellnet. The regulator is dealing with global players like Liberty and Telefonica and our regulation is simply not up to it. The regulator needs a much more aggressive approach to ensure fair consumer outcomes if a global player wants a stake of the UK market. There are enough market opportunities for companies to still make a decent profit without rinsing the consumer.
People generally prefer certainty over a longer term, even when it is likely to cost more over the longer term in practice.
(This has been repeatedly demonstrated in experiments)
The current approach can be framed as a “continuation fee” within a longer term contract; the “fee” in affect penalizing choice based on “up front” monthly affordability, or arises due to inattention to details by the consumer, or is a “customer non-compentency” fee.
Minor adjustments to current approach may be enough within the current scheme to get the right balance; my proposals
* A company wide percentage cap on annual increases i.e. can only increase to the greater of (say) 5% or largest percentage increase across all plans.
This deals with the unfairness of least expensive plans having significantly higher percentage increases
* Customer can break contract without penalty 10 days before any annual increase and within 45 days after any annual increase and at 6 months into the contract if there has been an increase in the
Isn’t that the whole point of a fixed-term contract? It’s the same logic as fixed vs tracker mortgage rates: you pay a bit over market at the time you sign because you’re trading flexibility for certainty.
You can’t have contractual lock-in and a price rise baked in for later in the term. If providers need to price in rising costs over the contract, fine, but that should be reflected in the price on day one. Not sprung on people halfway through. Instead of charging £10 at first then bumping to £12 halfway through, just price it at £11 from the outset so it’s transparent to the customer.
I was on EE SIMO for Unlimited but only using 41GB a month. £34 right now going to £37 next April. I paid to leave early for Mozillion – £120 for 2 years at 100GB a month!
Best thing I did. Getting faster speeds too!
This doesn’t reference the private members bill but… I note Martin Lewis is also picking this mid-contract price increase issue up on his Money Saving Expert web site – hopefully it will gain some momentum: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2026/06/mobile-broadband-price-hike-research/
Thanks
So useless news then really.
OFCOM should make the provider advertise their final monthly price as the monthly price – plain and simple.
OFCOM do not exist to protect the public, they exist to protect the providers to 5ty ane stop them doing stupid things and going bust, much like OFGEM with the energy companies.
Before the first comma it is correct and ofcom can easily be replaced by every government quango
The remainder is wrong. Ofcom is a big blight on companies with all their pointless bureaucracy. Even outside the industry them attacking american companies is just an insane waste of taxpayer money
For me the answer is simple, you cannot change the price during the contract term. This will cause firms to either abandon 2 year contracts as a 1 year contract would allow them to reset the price each year, or to set the initial price high to anticipate the rises.
What is wrong in my mind is being locked into a 2 year contract where the other side can change the goal posts, for example if I don’t pay they have all kinds of legal remedies available, if they hike prices after 1 month I have now.
Cue the list of commentators who will say ‘well you signed a contract blah de blah, yes I have no choice to sign the contract as presented to me if I want broadband’ there is no active competition
So if you sign up for an offer where the first three months are free and then it clearly states the price you pay from month 4 onwards, some people here think that it should instead be free for the entire contract instead?
Wow.
That made me laugh!
Mr Corbyn proposed free broadband for one and all in his manifesto for the 2019 election.
Shame he never got into power!
OfCon were simply inepts and delinquent with their ‘intervention, anyone with an IQ > 10 could reason that. The situations with ‘contracts’ is rather macheavellian gaming a system / seeing what you can get away with before there may be some enforecment, and of course regulated dismally by we all know who.
For this contracting game
a) I’d prefer a fixed price for the duration of the contract as we used to have, and protection to ensure it stays so, enter Ofcom – Oh, they’ve just exited the stage dreaming up their nexr self gratifying publicity spin, and a shame on their overseers.
b) Zero consumer control escallating contracts should be very clearly stated as that, and a whole contract price very clearly stated, if this dubious contracting practice is permitted to be seen as valid consumer friendly purchase.
Loyalty? Not any more everyone switching and swapping to reduce costs with never a thought of all the wasted costs and effort in provinding and doing so that would be better spent on ensuring service or , even reducing the cost of service!
The key difference is the regulatory framework.
The Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Act 2018 does not itself prohibit mid-term price increases on fixed-term energy contracts. The main control comes from the fact that supplying gas and electricity to domestic customers is a licensed activity. Suppliers must hold an Ofgem licence, and the Standard Licence Conditions impose legally binding obligations on them.
Telecommunications operate differently. Providers generally do not require an individual licence in the same way energy suppliers do; they operate under Ofcom’s General Conditions of Entitlement.
Therefore, the main distinction is that Ofgem regulates energy suppliers through individual supply licences, whereas Ofcom regulates telecom providers through a general authorisation framework.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-regulation/how-we-regulate/energy-licences-and-guidance/licences-and-licence-conditions