Ofcom has today begun a review of the prices that BT Openreach can charge communications providers for its wholesale access telecoms services. This includes both residential and business Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) and Local Loop Unbundling (LLU - SMPF/MPF) lines.

The move follows claims made by BT earlier in the year, which warned that its Openreach division, which was created to ensure fair access to its network for all operators, was no longer making the agreed 10% regulatory return on investment:


It's predicted that the outcome will see some small price increases, although by how much and to precisely which areas it would apply remain unknown. Naturally this could increase ISP service costs and thus cause the price of consumer packages to rise as well. Ofcom’s current charge ceilings for annual rental are as follows:


Typically any increase, even by as “little” as a few pence per month, could have serious consequences for ISPs that have lengthy customer contracts to uphold. £1 or £2 extra per annum may not seem like a lot, but multiply that by several hundred thousand to a few million customers and the problem quickly becomes apparent.