ISP NOW Broadband to Hike UK Prices by £3.50 a Month
Customers of Sky UK’s sibling NOW Broadband (NOW TV) sub-brand, which in March 2023 reportedly said that it would keep their broadband and phone prices frozen (here), has now begun notifying customers of an imminent price hike that will be introduced from 5th July 2023 – hiking monthly prices by an extra £3.50.
The good news is that those who are unhappy with the change, which doesn’t impact the provider’s social tariff for those on certain state benefits (NOW Broadband Basics), will be able to cancel their service penalty-free, provided you do so within the usual 31 days of having received the price increase notification letter.
A related information page about all this has also been added to NOW’s website (here), which states: “We understand that things are tough right now, and so alongside investing in improvements, we’re focused on providing value for our members. We haven’t increased our prices since NOW Broadband launched in 2018, but the costs of providing broadband services have increased significantly, and it is affecting the entire industry.”
“As you might know, many other providers are raising their prices, and we’ll be making some changes. From 5 July 2023, the prices of our broadband membership plans will be going up by £3.50. You’ll see the price change reflected in your bill on or after 5 July. If you’re on an offer, you’ll continue to enjoy a discounted price until your offer end date, but your payments will increase by £3.50 a month.”
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 and Linkedin.
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That’s a 14.5-17.5% increase across their plans, worse than the CPI increases everyone else was doing. Now was good for the flexibility, but with 63mbps top speeds, no one with Gigabit will be giving them a look.
Whilst some of their costs will have gone up, I very much doubt that their cost base has gone up by 15%. I had a look at VM’s corporate results, and total operating costs had actually gone down year on year, whilst the company bleated about inflation requiring a 13-35% rise. This is what you get with an ineffectual regulator.
@anonymous Asleep at the wheel is an understatement for Ofcom, more like blissful ignorance
anonymous, Virgin Media are on the wind up. They quote their massively increased energy costs, as if that’s the sum of their costs.
Guess what, our energy costs have gone up too. Massively. I’m facing cost pressures. Where’s my discount?
Think of VM’s whacking great price rises as a negative discount, that might help?
I will stick with Andrews & Arnold. I admit I probably use about 25% of my allowance, and so I have 49TB or something silly like that stored. But I like the fact they are on the end of the phone, decent to talk to, UK based and they don’t change their prices. I think all ISP’s should do this. I honestly can’t remember the lsat time I had a price rise on anything telecoms related. Only 1 £5 discount and 9.7TB usage increase a month
How do you have 20tb ?
I meant 49 tb
Increasing the cost of internet without providing any additional value is why altnets are doing important work
Unfortunately some of the altnets and/or their resellers are having a lot hidden costs making them pain in the back. Hopefully within next 5 years most of them will either go under administration or will be acquired by big players.
210BaseT, what a shock, another out of reach fanboy? Lets have all large companies provide our broadband, so they can rip us off, like many have been doing for years.,
Everyone who says something about this kinda thing you don’t like seems to be an Openreach fanboy, Ad.
He’s talking about networks, not the ISPs, and what he’s talking about is inevitable. There’ll be smaller, regional or local operators but most of any national scale will be acquired and they know it. Their business models are often built around it: if they don’t get bought out they fold.
Crikey. I’d regarded NOW Broadband in a pretty positive light in terms of its lower-cost pricing and 12 month minimum term (or indeed no minimum term for a £60 set-up fee), but this move rather blows that up.
Onestream seems to offer a good price for a 12 month contract, also have FTTP if anyone wants that. Not sure what they are like, i am going to do some searching.