BT Openreach Offer FREE FTTC “Fibre Broadband” Upgrades to Faster Tiers

Openreach (BT) has launched a new special offer for ISPs across the United Kingdom, which will allow customers on slower speed Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) based broadband lines to be upgraded to a faster tier for no extra charge (valid for orders between 1st April and 30th September 2017).

Normally ISPs have to pay a small one-off “bandwidth modify” charge of £11.25 +vat per line when upgrading their existing FTTC “fibre broadband” customers to a faster tier, such as when moving from an ‘up to’ 40Mbps (2Mbps upload) profile to an 80Mbps (20Mbps upload) one. However this will soon be removed for a period of six months. There are no special terms and ISPs don’t need to apply for the offer.

Openreach Statement

We’re launching this special offer to financially support our customers in their efforts to provide enhanced broadband experience over higher fibre speeds.

CPs can take advantage of the offer, for bandwidth upgrades, that are ordered between Saturday 1 April and Saturday 30 September 2017 inclusive.

Quite a few ISPs already choose to absorb the “bandwidth modify” charge rather than pass it into their subscribers. Meanwhile a lot of people often pick the slower 40Mbps tier precisely because their copper line might not be able to cope with anything faster. As such we can’t see this having a big impact on the market, but it is still a useful change.