Annual Price Hikes Hit WightFibre Broadband Customers on Isle of Wight

Broadband ISP WightFibre, which operates a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the Isle of Wight – just off the South Coast of Hampshire in England, has started notifying existing customers about their plan to introduce annual price increases from 1st April 2026.

Like other internet providers, WightFibre has already replaced their old percentage and inflation-based model of annual price hikes with one that follows Ofcom’s new rule (here), requiring such pricing changes to be set out “clearly and up-front, in pounds and pence, when a customer signs up”.

New customers to the service were thus being sold packages with an expected annual price hike of £4 built-in and now existing customers are being notified to expect the same. One of the provider’s customers has kindly forwarded a copy of the email they received from the provider’s CEO, which we’ve pasted below, although including the strap line “because we care” on such a letter may well be greeted with some degree of scepticism.

The customer who received this was on WightFibre’s 150Mbps (symmetric) broadband-only plan and paying £30.99 per month, thus a £4 annual hike reflects an increase of 12.91% – several times higher than the current rate of inflation (CPI recently fell to 3%). As we’ve said before, the approach that many providers have taken to adopting Ofcom’s new rules often results in those on the lowest cost packages being hit the hardest.

However, it’s worth remembering that broadband, phone and TV 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 all sorts of new regulations and taxes etc.

Consumer who are hit by mid-contract hikes like this could try haggling for a lower price when the notification drops (Retentions – Tips for Cutting Your Broadband Bill), although failing that many will now have the option of swapping to a similar service on Openreach’s local FTTP network (albeit often with slower upload speeds). Meanwhile, those on benefits (Universal Credit etc.) also have the option of taking a cheaper Social Tariff – see our Quick Guide to UK Social Tariffs (WightFibre doesn’t apply the same hike to these).