Mobile and Broadband Providers May Ration UK Network Use to Cut Energy Costs UPDATE2
Mobile network operators, such as EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK (VodafoneThree), have reportedly warned the government that, in a worst-case scenario, the current energy crisis and rising costs may force some of them to ration access to their network or slow mobile broadband (4G, 5G) speeds in order to reduce energy usage.
The option is said to be part of emergency plans that have been pieced together by the operators after the Government excluded them from the new British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS), which pledged to help cut energy bills by up to 25% for over 10,000 businesses (manufacturers) from April 2027.
However, mobile operators argue that their networks are a highly energy intensive critical service, consuming just under 1 Terawatt-hour of electricity annually (roughly enough to power 370,000 homes). This is a problem because the cost of their electricity usage has risen by 70% in recent years and the conflict in the Middle East is expected to make things much worse.
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According to the Telegraph (paywall), another option could be to adopt “surge pricing“, which would charge customers an additional fee at peak times (we assume this would be applied to mobile data / broadband usage). But it’s important to stress that these are “worst case” style contingency plans and we’re not yet at such a level.
The operators have also threatened the possibility of scaling-back plans to expand their 5G networks (this could be tricky for VodafoneThree, given the binding commitments they’ve made), while at the same time cutting jobs and moving more roles offshore (outsourcing abroad). Such a development would put pressure on the Government’s ambition “for all populated areas” to have access to Standalone 5G based mobile broadband technology by 2030 (here).
A Virgin Media O2 spokesperson said:
“Mobile and broadband networks are critical national infrastructure that almost every consumer and business relies on, yet despite their importance, telecoms companies have been excluded from support offered to other energy-intensive sectors.
If the Government wants growth, productivity and resilience, it cannot overlook the digital networks the country depends on.”
A spokesman for VodafoneThree said:
“We are disappointed that the Government has chosen not to include the telecoms sector in the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme.
We urge the Government to consider the impact of rising energy prices on the vital telecoms sector that unlocks growth in all parts of the economy.”
Consumers are unlikely to greet any such measures positively. Any industry-wide move to adopt a similar approach is likely to be viewed quite cynically, particularly after so many of the biggest providers have been busy hitting customers with inflation busting price hikes for the past few years.
Not to mention the energy savings they’ve recently made by switching-off 3G networks (2G will follow) and through the adoption of new technologies alongside 5G / 5G Standalone (5G+) networks, such as AI based traffic and energy optimisations or deep sleep modes etc.
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The focus of this article is currently on mobile operators, although it’s conceivable that some of the same issues could also impact fixed broadband services too. But at present this all seems to be more about putting pressure on the government to expand their energy support scheme, yet that could change if the current crisis isn’t resolved soon and even then, energy prices will take time to recover.
UPDATE 5:17pm
VMO2 has informed ISPreview that rationing or throttling aren’t things they are looking at.
UPDATE 24th April 2026 @ 3:44pm
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BT has now confirmed that they too have “no current plans to ration access, reduce speeds or introduce surge pricing” on their EE mobile network. Admittedly we always take the use of “no plans” language from mobile operators with a huge pinch of salt, since plans can and often do change at a moment’s notice (we still remember when they had “no plans” to introduce EU roaming charges, right up until they did a u-turn).
The process of elimination leaves only VodafoneThree as not yet having given a firm denial.
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 simple rebuff to this is look at their profits, its hard to claim hardship if accounts are healthy. But that requires regulation which the government is too soft to do.
Three announced this regardless of the energy costs, it’s just an excuse.
They didn’t announce anything it is just the Telegraph fear mongering as usual.
And The Sun today as well.
As usual with most telecoms, trying to milk us as much as they can. Weak government and the organisations know this and simply trying it on.
What about compensation to customers if speeds and services are reduced, it’s not the service you paid for, whatever small print they may try and get away with. Already not delivering in a lot of cases because of over utilised cells etc.
For this you need a reliable/competent regulator which if Ofcom is not.
With this even being talked about at all, I am suddenly reminded of how things were under a Labour government in the 1970’s.
People clearly, need to be reminded that the blame for this, Energy crisis. Falls firmly on the doorstep of a US Republican administration in Washington. The US blundering into Iran, and cutting off a Third of the worlds Energy, with back of the fag packet war planning, has caused this crisis…
Wasn’t the government’s fault then and isn’t now so not sure what your point is. Are Labour to blame for the US and Israel attacking Iran this year alongsise the Yom Kippur War and Iranian revolution in the 70s?
They’ve done a lot wrong but can’t see how they’re to blame for those.
All of this is hilarious and unrelated
The UK has oil. The elites decided not to drill the oil and instead decided to be dependent on a literal wacko Iranian regime that wants bribes for ships sailing through near them
Also the “green” energy policy has caused the UK energy prices to be in the top most expensive in the world regardless of whether Iran is shooting boats down
Reminder that HALF of the money people pay at the pump is TAXES
+1 John.
My bill gone up £2.50 EE my three SIM only gone up £1.50 now they want to cut back lol
Refunds will be required for customers – if I sign up for unlimited 5g on contract and I don’t get it, I’m not paying the bill. This is an absurd article. Millions will be able to leave their contracts because the service was not provided.
Could this be why Three decided at the weekend to cap data speeds to 100 Mbps for new contracts?
It’s time to fully renationalise all telecom companies in the UK to provide free telecommunications for all fixed line, Digital Voice, Broadband and mobile with resources prioritised for 4G to maintain effective coverage. Nationalisation of water, gas, electricity, bus, rail, Royal Mail, Post Office, NHS services and local government services will mean improved quality of service, better accountability, improved access and greater efficiency with vastly reduced costs to customers. In wartime nationalisation of utilities will become essential in the national interest and national security.
100% – wouldn’t even say free (but would have to be regulated to avoid a Monopoly-like price push), but I do think we should have one a single mobile network covering 100% of the country. It’s mad in the 21st century there are still large parts of a relatively small country that don’t have signal, or if they do it’s not covered by every network.
No matter what the situation was, POTS always worked, unless storms caused an outage, could we face a situation that causes VOIP to fail, I don’t know the answer, is anyone here able to answer that question ❓⁉️
+1 I miss being able to have a traditional line.
If we end up with fuel shortages then the supposedly infallible PSTN would be at risk both from a loss of grid power and also the fuel needed to keep the generators going. The expectation would be that Openreach’s needs would be prioritised, but that depends on dire things were to get, and would there be a reason to prioritise the altnets too?
A smaller number of exchanges (after the closure programme) would in some ways be an improvement, as there are fewer sites to manage, and Openreach FTTP doesn’t rely on mains powered street equipment for 99.9% of users.
Remember that all of the power resilience that the copper cheerleaders tout has long been defeated by the use of cordless phones and the reality that people didn’t heed advice to keep a corded phone around
lmao Ivor, some serious crazy talk going on.
I didn’t know that the conflict on the other side of the globe can affect nuclear plants in the UK…
It wouldn’t if we had enough of them to supply 100% of our electricity.
Hmmm… North Sea Oil and Coal…. Just saying :!
Change the record. Oil is priced on the international markets. And what comes out of the North Sea, being mainly suitable/used for transport/energy production, will have next to zero effect on the international oil price, and therefore electricity prices/transport costs would remain high. Also, the UK does not have any coal-fired power stations. They’ve all been demolished. The only way to reduce energy/electricity prices is to decarbonise so you are not at the whims of international situations like the current one. Build some tidal barrages and wave-power generation capacity. And for base-load security, let’s hope the SMRs being developed/tested by Rolls Royce are successful and economic. Invest in the future, not the past.
Yawn…. when are we going to wake up to the reality here which is we could of prevented and could still be preventing issues but those that control the situations don’t want to resolve them.
Why does this problem occur in the UK and not in other European countries or better yet, in the EU itself? I could understand it if operators in the UK offered a high standard of service, coverage in every remote area, etc., but it’s exactly the opposite. Anyone who travels to continental Europe can see how poor the level of service provided by UK operators is in every respect. Instead, UK operators just keep adding more conditions like “if we don’t get this, we’ll do this or that, or we won’t do something”
If this is the case can’t they just turn off 5G only as that uses higher frequency
Great advertising for Starlink then.
Well, I for one call BS. Most of these masts’ operators will be on long-term fixed-price electricity contracts and, unless very unlucky, likely won’t be up for renewal during the current US/Israeli-inspired problems. The government is already committed to decoupling electricity prices from wholesale gas prices, which will bring prices down in the next couple of years. Some masts, mostly in emergencies, will be run on diesel of course, so those energy costs will double. So there is some sympathy there. But I say turn down your office’s heating by a degree; and when the summer kicks in, open the windows rather than run the a/c.
The other option is to include the telecoms providers in the current emergency plans and then hit them with an excess-profits tax.
On a related point, there are well established contingency processes should the UK ever run severely short of electrical supply and need to institute rolling blackouts.
The lists of “regions” that will be turned off in time based rotation for varying levels of available grid power is available online (with a bit of searching, and I don’t have the time now to find the exact link but I have looked in the past).
The “printable” version of your electric bill should contain a discreet letter in a box (somewhere) which tells you which “region” you are assigned to as a key into the rotation grids (one set of grids for each major power level step, from “off for a few hours per week” to “on for a few hours per week”.
What is probably not clear is which “letter” your local mobile masts are assigned to–you could presume that that they would have the same letter as you do, but that’s likely not an accurtae assumption in all cases as the “regional” are apparently quite small areas (and calling it a “region” is a significant simplication, it’s more complex so I am glossing this.
Can I ration how much I pay on my bill then?