Openreach Propose to Expand UK Area Covered by FTTP Broadband Discounts UPDATE
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today notified UK broadband ISPs that they intend to expand the Equinox Offer Area, which reflects their long-term wholesale pricing discount scheme for helping move customers from slower copper to faster full fibre (FTTP) lines.
The proposed change, which has been notified to Ofcom (they have up to 120 days to review it), would expand the Equinox Offer Area so that eligible FTTP premises made ‘Ready for Service’ (RFS) from the “applicable effective date of the contract amendment up to and including 31st March 2027 will qualify for Equinox pricing” on the same basis as premises already included within the Offer Area.
The briefing’s title – “Expanding the Equinox Offer Area” – actually makes all of this sound more dramatic than it really is, which isn’t helped by Openreach’s classic use of dry contractual language that makes it a bit tricky to understand at first glance.
Advertisement
In short, Openreach appear to be simplifying their approach and admin by making clear that any newly-built qualifying FTTP premises will now automatically join the Offer Area until at least 31st March 2027 (there’s no change to the offer itself). This reflects somewhat of a rolling expansion for the Equinox discounts, so they can now catch newly built FTTP premises more quickly, rather than having to keep updating the offer area / contract as new premises are added. At least that’s how we read it, but we could be wrong.
UPDATE 31st July 2026 @ 7:19am
We’ve had a comment from Openreach.
An Openreach spokesperson said:
“As we build further to harder-to-reach areas, and look to reach more than 25 million homes and businesses, this is simply a continuation of the existing Equinox offers that were already approved by Ofcom. The next chapter of the full fibre story is helping more customers benefit from the network we’re building, and at a time when many households are watching every bill, this continuation allows for more customers to get better value, more choice and faster access to full fibre broadband.”
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.
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person's legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
‘Reader for Service‘? Ready?
This openreach statement that the whole of the UK will be included
in the full fibre upgrade is B.S. as I have undeniable proof from my ISP that full fibre is not a viable option at my housing association tower block and will have to resort to either mobile 4/5 G mobile or
Starlink . At my previous address we were letter bombed for 9 years by Hyperoptic banging on and on that FTTP will soon be in our area
It all came laughingly to nothing because if you live in a housing association tower block you have no chance of an upgrade
Unfortunately, that’s on the housing association not Openreach (or any other fibre provider). If you have a decent constituency MP (I know many of us don’t) it might be worth writing to them.