Openreach Tweaks and Evolves Equinox FTTP Broadband Pricing Scheme

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today informed broadband ISPs (Communications Providers) about some tweaks to their existing Equinox price discounts for Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) lines at wholesale, which are intended to take effect from 1st July next year (2027) – following publication of the November 2026 inflation (CPI) figure.

The Equinox scheme can be a bit tricky to summarise. But it’s broadly designed to incentivise partner ISPs to push customers toward adopting FTTP, and ideally the fastest broadband tiers, by offering incentives through price reductions on service rentals and connection charges. So the more customers you can push in that direction (volume commitments), the cheaper it gets.

The discount scheme has been running for a few years now and Openreach are today issuing a Year 6 pricing notice under the Equinox FTTP Offer, which confirms that a different price mechanism will apply between 1st October 2026 and 30th September 2027. But the main changes won’t be introduced until 1st July 2027.

“Instead of standard CPI indexation, the contract provides fixed value limits that can be used to update rental, connection and ARPU Share threshold pricing. Openreach is using that Year 6 mechanism to keep the FY28 average price change reasonably similar to that experienced previously with CPI increase,” said the operator’s new briefing.

What is changing

The Year 6 pricing will be implemented from 1 July 2027. Final prices will be confirmed after the relevant CPI figure is published in November 2026 and will be notified through the usual ACCN and price list process.

The price adjustment will be capped so that increases do not exceed the lower of:

• the relevant fixed value limit available under the Year 6 review; and

• the amount needed to achieve a CPI increase on a weighted average basis in FY28, taking into account the fact that implementation starts on 1 July 2027 rather than 1 April 2027.

This means CPs will see no Equinox Year 6 price change for April to June 2027. The July 2027 to March 2028 price movement is then calibrated to recover the same full-year value that would have applied had the CPI-based change taken effect from April 2027, subject to the contractual Year 6 limits.

How the Year 6 adjustment will apply

Pricing element	Year 6 cap	How the FY28 adjustment will be applied from 1 July 2027 to 31 March 2028
Rental prices up to and including 330/50 speeds	Up to £1	Lower of CPI × 1.33 or £1 (for Equinox 2) or £1.50 (for Equinox 1)
Rental prices above 330/50 speeds	Up to £1	Lower of CPI*1.23-1.25% or £1 (for Equinox 2) or £1.50 (for Equinox 1)
ARPU Share threshold	Up to £1	Lower of CPI × 1.33 or £1 (for Equinox 2) or £1.50 (for Equinox 1)
Connection charges	Up to £20	Lower of CPI × 1.33 or £20 (for both Equinox 1 and 2)

Why the adjustment is being made this way

The Year 6 mechanism applies because standard CPI indexation does not apply in Year 6. Openreach is applying the Year 6 mechanism in a way that is reasonably similar with the normal CPI approach, rather than using the full contractual headroom available where that would exceed the CPI-equivalent outcome.

This approach provides CPs with a clear and proportionate outcome:

• pricing for April to June 2027 remains unchanged for Rentals, Connections and ARPU Share, giving CPs three months of lower FY28 pricing at the start of the year;

• the July to March adjustment is designed to smooth the full-year FY28 outcome back to a CPI-equivalent level;

• the FY28 catch-up adjustment does not become the starting point for any FY29 pricing; and

• any FY29 CPI calculations will use the blended FY28 price across the full 12 months, not the higher July to March FY28 price.

The change doesn’t look as if it’ll have much of an impact on slower FTTP broadband tiers, although the fastest tiers (1.2Gbps and up) may become a bit more attractive (overall it’ll probably be fairly stable). Openreach seem to be evolving rather than replacing their current approach, although connection charges may rise a bit.

The broad goal is still the same as it was before, which is to grow take-up by consumers and incentivise the move away from older, as well as slower, copper-based products. At the same time Openreach are trying to remain as competitive as Ofcom will allow them to be with alternative networks, which can often beat them on price and performance.

In practice, consumers probably shouldn’t be expecting the above tweak to result in any significant changes to the price they pay for FTTP on Openreach’s network. But it might have a greater impact once Openreach start launching their new XGS-PON powered full fibre tiers at speeds of up to 8.5Gbps in the next year or so, although we don’t yet know the final pricing for those.