ISP Exascale explores adoption of dynamic UK home broadband pricing
Broadband internet provider Exascale, which has built their own full fibre (FTTP) network to a few thousand premises in parts of Shropshire (Telford and Wrekin) and also sells packages via other networks (e.g. CityFibre), has today revealed that they’re currently “exploring” the launch of a commodity-inspired, market-responsive broadband tariff with dynamic pricing.
On the surface this sounds like a good way to make an already excessively complex and confusing UK market even more tedious for consumers to navigate and compare. Exascale doesn’t view it like that and believes this could give customers an opportunity to “benefit when the economics of connectivity improve“, without unlimited price exposure.
So what are we actually talk about here? Sadly, Exascale are a little light on the details, but the idea draws its inspiration from the principles of commodity markets and proposes a dynamic pricing model that would allow broadband charges to respond to changing market conditions.
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Under this model, customers would be offered an agreed price floor and ceiling (i.e. a minimum and maximum range that your monthly price never exceeds), guaranteed for 24 months, while your actual monthly broadband charge could fluctuate within those boundaries. Where an increase is proposed, customers would receive appropriate advance notification and retain their applicable cancellation rights.
Pricing would then be reviewed and potentially adjusted every 30 days based on those fluctuations, “potentially allowing customers to benefit automatically from favourable market conditions and improvements in the underlying economics of delivering connectivity” (costs of course tend to go up, often more than they go down).
Unlike conventional broadband packages, the proposed scheme would also operate on a 30-day rolling service agreement, giving customers greater flexibility without requiring a traditional long-term service commitment. So the 24-months mentioned earlier doesn’t reflect a contract term, just the period they’d follow for defining the minimum and maximum range per customer for what you could be charged.
Thomas Bibb, CEO of Exascale, told ISPreview:
“Broadband pricing hasn’t fundamentally changed in years. We’ve seen enormous investment in infrastructure and significant advances in technology, yet we continue to sell connectivity in largely the same way.
Commodity markets respond to changes in supply, demand and underlying costs, so why shouldn’t broadband pricing reflect some of those same principles?
We’re exploring a model where customers could benefit automatically when the economics of delivering their service improve, while having the reassurance of a guaranteed maximum price for 24 months.
Customers shouldn’t have to threaten to leave to get a better deal. We believe there’s an opportunity to make broadband pricing fairer, more responsive and more transparent, without the need for lengthy contractual commitments.”
Exascale aren’t only looking at this in terms of monthly pricing either. The company is also considering a different approach to broadband installation costs, which would give customers a choice between paying their installation costs upfront or benefiting from a subsidised installation.
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Where a customer chooses a subsidised installation, the recoverable subsidy would reduce progressively over an agreed period, with the applicable terms and any outstanding charges clearly disclosed before the customer enters into an agreement. One catch here is that, even on a 30-day term, you’d still need to pay that installation fee off when leaving the provider (not an issue if you’ve already paid for in full at the start).
The company is currently investigating the technical and commercial structures that would be required to introduce such a model, including how pricing changes could be calculated, communicated and implemented while maintaining appropriate customer protections.
ISPreview’s perspective
At present there’s a lack of detail and practical examples to help us judge the approach being proposed. The provider merely points to prices varying due to “change over time as network utilisation, operating costs and market conditions evolve“. The provider informed us that they’re keeping the underlying mechanics commercially confidential at this stage, although their model apparently isn’t based on inflation or the conventional annual price adjustments. Needless to say, it’s left us both confused and curious in equal measure.
However, in our experience, consumers usually respond positively to simplicity and certainty, while tending to rage against anything that increases the price they pay (especially when applied mid-contract). Suffice to say a package that fluctuates in price, seemingly due to unclear and difficult to independently verify factors, even when meant with the best of intentions, could still be a tough sell. But it’s always good to see some innovative thinking and if this ultimately delivers more benefits than negatives to consumers, then so much the better.
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The system would presumably also increase the complexity for the ISP too, particularly in terms of managing billing and related disputes that could potentially emerge. Lest we forget that the offer may end up being slightly different (personalised) for every individual customer, depending upon when you sign-up. Granted AI and automation can help with this, but it’s definitely more complex and tedious to promote (e.g. price comparison sites and advertising).
On the other hand, a lot of people today have Smart Energy tariffs where the amount they pay fluctuates a lot by the wholesale cost of energy – usually combined with solar and battery storage for maximum impact. Of course, it’s a lot easier to understand the linear pricing variations of a single wholesale electricity supply than the many different aspects that make up a modern broadband connection.
However, for now, this is just a concept that Exascale said remains under evaluation; this is not a product launch.. yet. ISPreview understands that the provider could be ready to soft launch a trial of this in December 2026, but that’s currently quite tentative. We look forward to seeing what they come up with. But if you have to use an entire page to explain how a single price works, is it really worth the effort? We’ll find out soon enough.
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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This feels like a spectacularly bad idea.
I’m really looking forward to not knowing what my broadband bill is going to be from one month to the next.
And good luck getting Ofcom, CityFibre and the rest of the industry on board with it – they almost certainly won’t be.
Sometimes AI (or whoever’s generating these “innovative” ideas) really isn’t very good. Broadband is not energy. Treating it like a commodity market is a recipe for confusion, not fairness.
Can see customers running for the Hills!
Most people I believe are looking for the cheapest package they can afford, and complain excessively when it fluctuates from that. So having something that will drift I’m sure will cause more complaints, than solve problems!
“Confused and curious” sums up how I feel, too.
I have dynamic half-hour electricity pricing, but only because my solar and battery system responds to market prices via Predbat. I buy necessary electricity at the cheapest rate, which may mean buying in advance and storing it in my batteries, and export excess electricity at the most advantageous price. I am usually better off optimising my own electricity imports and exports than paying an energy supplier to hedge the market for me.
However, I cannot see any advantage of dynamic broadband pricing. I cannot engage meaningfully with the market or its underlying forces; I have to pay whatever the dynamic price happens to be, or go elsewhere.
I have no interest in this tariff; I would rather pay a predictable monthly cost (to Zen, in my case, who fix your price for your minimum contract period).
I appreciate the idea that change is sometimes hard to envisage, however the ceiling price will never be more than the current prevailing market price. Therefore the most you’ll pay is if you’re on a fixed deal (first and foremost).
The price then will almost certainly decrease over the 24 month period (Which the price is guaranteed and is not a contract). The mechanics of how this happens will become clear in December.
The pricing mechanism is just a small part of the initiative, we foresee the model challenging incumbent monopolies/duopolies – without the requirement of large amounts of capital to challenge them.
Once announced I’ll be more than happy to be interviewed and put forth why I think the current model is broken and now in part our model makes for a more fair and inclusive broadband market for operators of all sizes. Level the playing field if you will.
It would be good to have an example of what you feel would lead to a cost coming down one month from the other, are we talking about things like your energy bills to run the network?
The most obvious starting point would be: a service which drops in cost at the end of the initial term.
The initial set-up costs (e.g. router, Openreach connection charge, cost of sales and marketing) have already been paid off. Therefore, let the service roll on at a lower cost now those charges have been cleared, representing just the on-going costs. Then allow it to fall as telecomms costs fall in general. Don’t forget a low-cost online regrade process (e.g. speed increase or decrease) without starting a new contract term.
Sadly, the market seems to have taken us in the opposite direction: most providers bump the price *up* both within the contract and at the end of the contract. The only purpose this serves is to hide the true cost from the consumer, who sees only the headline price when they compare two different providers. It also makes people switch providers needlessly (since the best deals are reserved for newcomers, not renewals).
“Leveling the playing field” sounds great, but it won’t catch on until other providers are required to display a true indication of cost: the total cost over the contract term, the effective average price per month, and the follow-on price per month after the end of the term.
Hey Tom,
I get what you’re trying to do. It’s not a bad idea really. ‘If our costs drop, so does your price’.
As all in CAPS Adams reminds us though take attention spans meaning people don’t tend to read past headlines, reading and comprehension levels meaning that even if they did read they wouldn’t understand, and add a dash of the desire to foam at the mouth in righteous indignation online rejecting all evidence and any hint you may be mistaken the feedback from these comments is predictable.
Hopefully people will be able to understand ‘This is the most you’ll pay for two years. If our costs drop, so does your price. 30 day contract.’
Or perhaps not. Who knows?
>> This is the most you’ll pay for two years. If our costs drop, so does your price. 30 day contract.
I think people can be forgiven for hearing dynamic pricing and thinking there must be more to it than that. My ISP just reduced their price by £1 a month because their costs dropped. There is no guarantee they will continue to do that of course but if there is a contractual guarantee as proposed here then there would need to be some kind of transparent benchmark we can independently verify. It couldn’t just be a hand wavey thing. And that’s where I struggle to see it. But I guess we will find out in December.
They can stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine. The “average” price over time will be either be similar to fixed contracts or even more. Some days will be cheap to make it look like its OK, but if you actally did the math then it probably won’t be. Still a 24 month contract and they can choose to keep it above other providers for some or most days and you can’t escape as you are in a contract where this type of pricing allows this.
No thanks, like certainty on prices when entering a fixed term contract. Prevaling “market price” – whose is that then? Openreach or the cheapest Altnet for example? ONTs are powered by end user electric. Not sure what the moving price is about….
Demand pricing is just a con like train tickets use. Even the supermarkets trying it on now. Soon it will be, use your broadband in peak hours and pay 3 times more. Demand pricing is why the electric companies are foaming at the mouth to get everyone onto Smart Meters.
Demand pricing is not a con. It works very well for trains and energy. It’s a big incentive for people who want to travel on the 7am train but can actually wait until 10am to do so. Otherwise you might find people being left behind on the platform. I’m really not sure how it could work for broadband though. It’s not like we are anything close to bandwidth constrained at the moment.
‘Some days will be cheap to make it look like its OK’
The price adjustment is every 30 day rolling term, not daily.
‘Still a 24 month contract’
No, it’s 30 day rolling. The maximum price is locked in for 24 months.
‘Demand pricing is just a con like train tickets use. Demand pricing is why the electric companies are foaming at the mouth to get everyone onto Smart Meters.’
Bit odd commenting on foaming at the mouth having spent about 20 times longer foaming at the mouth in the comments than reading the article so can’t even say you were in a hurry. Didn’t even make it half way. Didn’t want to risk letting evidence get in the way of expressing an opinion I guess?
I use trains. Demand pricing does not work in my area. It only goes up closer to travel date. It used to go down and for peak to get to work, it went up when they started doing this nonsense.
You really believe it would stay 30 day rolling lol that’s just to hook you in. Same as smart meters that’s why they are panicking because wise people are holding off and get the best fixed deals especially if they havent got electric cars to worry about and those tariffs probably will disappear in future anyway.
Foam away, BURN.
“I appreciate the idea that change is sometimes hard to envisage” – Mangement and Marketing BS to imply people have got it wrong and they are right.
” Level the playing field if you will.” – we have that with competition generally. No longer tied to excessive renewal or out of contract pricing with Virgin Media for example.
What’s in it for Exascale then? A business is there to make as much money as possible from customers but having to keep within a boundary of what competitors charge. If so fantastically better for customers, why would you want less income? You aren’t going to take over all the key brands because some people will always be BT or EE as a familiar name that is established.
I think the variable electricity tariffs are a bad analogy. When you add a new computer to the internet, that effectively increases the total bandwidth of the whole network. One could say this is not how the modern, excessively centralized web works, and this is true. So one could say the limiting factor is the ISP’s uplink, and if there is congestion on that, the ISP would charge more. And with this, we just incentivized the ISP not to improve their network and to provide worse service.
While I would only consider ISPs who are offering a fixed price during the whole life of the contract, without punitive out of contract increases, let me refer back to the first line of this comment.
Bonkers.
Many of the costs in connectivity are fixed costs.
Consumers could understand time of day pricing for utilisation, to encourage bulk data transfers when the network is quieter, but for most users the opportunity value of this is low.
One variable cost is the amount of on-net verses private peering verses public transit peering, but for the average consumer to have any clue of what endpoints they’re connecting to is near impossible.
Transit costs for ISPs are so low these days that it makes no difference – it can be as little as 3¢ per Mbps when bought in 100G. https://resources.telegeography.com/ip-transit-price-erosion-significant-regional-differences-remain
In any case, the bulk of Internet traffic volume these days comes from Google, Apple, Netflix, Facebook, Cloudflare etc, who install their own interconnects and/or caches within large provider networks.
your walking on Eggshells or Exascales perhaps
But who care anyway. Glad we got Openreach in Telford.
They sell over other networks too. How many times did you email them asking when they were building to you?
Sorry to say, but I don’t think it will work.
I hope and wish it would work… I like having choice, but I am able to handle complex calculations and T&C to work out what suits me best.
Offering costs based on, for example, supplying your own router, or the number of subscribers in the village, sounds good in principal – I believe this was a thing when FTTP rollouts were starting – did it work?
As others have said though – the great unwashed just want the ‘cheapest’ simplest option. I see so many small businesses paying £15-20/month for a desk phone with ‘unlimited calls’, making about £1-2 worth of calls, instead of paying per-minute and a monthly subscription cost of less than £10 because, well, maths is hard I guess.
A&A are the only provider I know of still offering per-GB pricing tiers, everyone else has gone unlimited (even FUP’s have largely disappeared on fixed-line broadband) – again presumably because it’s easier to sell, and it’s what everyone else is doing.
I wish Exa the best, and I’m interested to see what they do offer, and for how long they continue to do so / how it changes over time.
I think a degree of per GB pricing could work well, there will be excess capacity from say midnight to 7am, and much less at from.say 4-10pm. Rewarding those with low usage or low on peak usage might make sense.
The uncertainty and difficulty in comparing prices will make it a hard sell, the unlimited usage won out years ago in broadband, and I think will increasingly become the norm on mobile too
tldr: Broadband pricing is one of the few areas to have seen a marked increase in what the product can deliver whilst providing a real-terms reduction in cost. Dynamic pricing is too much hassle for what it can deliver.
I suspect Exascale may be missing the point a little here.
Back in around 2000 Telewest were selling Blueyonder, their first “broadband” (512kbps symmetric) for £50 a month.
Here in 2026, I pay £35 a month for 2Gbps symmetric.
I doubt anyone could really be bothered to take a deal like this, at best you save a couple of quid in x period of time – but the mental bandwidth it would occupy to monitor, review, check etc is just not worth it.