BT Openreach UK Delays Start Date for Cheaper FTTC Migrations

Consumers hoping to benefit from cheaper migration fees (reduced from £50 to £11 +vat) between FTTC superfast broadband ISPs on BT’s national UK telecoms network will need to wait a little longer before they can benefit after BTOpenreach corrected the start date to 31st July 2014.

One of the many outcomes from Ofcom’s 2014 Fixed Access Market Review (FAMR), which was first published on 26th June 2014 (here), was a requirement for Openreach to slash the wholesale migration fee for FTTC lines from £50 to £11 +vat. Similarly the minimum contract period for FTTC lines was also to be cut from 12 months to 1 month, albeit only for existing FTTC users that migrate to another FTTC ISP (i.e. not first-time customers).

Shortly after that BTOpenreach revealed its new prices to reflect Ofcom’s decision (here), which were all initially slated to be introduced on 1st July 2014. But in a brief update Openreach has now confirmed that the effective date for their FTTC / GEA price change is actually 31st July 2014 (this only impacts the migration fee).

It should be said that some ISPs already absorb this fee, thus end-users shouldn’t suffer too much as a result of the minor delay.