2023-03-01: Price inflation notification

Overview: this constitutes our official notification of price rises for specific services types, which come into effect for the April 2023 billing cycle. All existing orders with the following services will experience an automatic price change, and any new orders placed from today onwards will carry the pricing with immediate effect.

### IMPORTANT: Please read carefully as some services will experience a 15% increase ###

Additionally, "old tech" such as PSTN lines and ISDN will be increased by 20%.

Factors influencing the price increases

Tier 1 suppliers have announced prices increases, and these affect all wholesale channels in the UK market; we have chosen to pass on the increase without adding any additional increase of our own. The key drivers to the Tier 1 supplier increases are cited as:

• RPI has risen to 13.4%
  • The Retail Prices Index tracks things like train travel, car tax, tobacco & alcohol.
• CPI has risen to 10.5%
  • The Consumer Prices Index tracks things like pensions, Universal Credit & sick pay.

Additionally, the communications industry has to absorb increased costs due to OfCom approving requests made by the main UK infrastructure giant Openreach; see example UK altnets slam Ofcom BT wholesale tariff approval | Computer Weekly 

Official UK Government definitions and rates for both RPI & CPI can be found here: Inflation and price indices - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) 

The price increases taking effect in April 2023

All prices exclude VAT @ 20%

The good news first: all VF FTTP fibre services and Cloud Voice are unaffected, meaning that in real terms (factoring in RPI of 13.4%) this is cost reduction.

• VF FTTP: no increase
• FTTPoD: no increase
• Cloud Voice: no increase
• Cloud Voice Go: no increase
• SIP trunks: no increase
• Microsoft DNS only licenses: no increase
• SmarterMail: no increase
• Hosting (non-UK data centres): no increase
  • Includes VPS servers (no increase)
• Domain registration: no increase
• H3 ("3") mobile: no increase 
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• 10 Gbps DIA: no increase

The specific service types are being increased differently, as each Tier 1 supplier has announced different calculations:

• PSTN phone lines: 20% increase
  • This is to encourage adoption of digital voice (such as Cloud Voice) and digital-only connectivity such as FTTP, SoGEA and 5G as we near the 2025 cut-off for PSTN services: see https://internetservices.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/5000874986-2025-copper-phone-line-switch-off
• Connectivity: 15% increase
  • This includes ADSL, FTTC, SoGEA on any network
  • This includes all FTTP except VF
  • Disconnection fee ("cease") increases from £31.12 to £35.59
  • Connection fee (where engineer attends site) increased from £55.00 to £65.00; we will still apply our £50 subsidy towards these types of installations.
• Dedicated Internet Access: 15% increase on all networks
  • This includes 100 Mbps up to 1 Gbps; 10 Gbps bearers are unaffected by the price rise.
• Hosting (UK data centres):  14.4% increase (CPI rate 10.5% = 3.9% AP)
  • This includes VPS servers
  • This includes SD-WAN (bonding) services
• EE mobile: 14.4% increase (CPI rate 10.5% = 3.9% AP)
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• VMO2 mobile: 14.4% increase (CPI rate 10.5% = 3.9% AP)
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• VF mobile: 14.4% increase (CPI rate 10.5% = 3.9% AP)
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• Things (IoT): 10.5% increase (CPI rate)
• Microsoft 365 licenses: 20%increase
  • This was already announced 1 year ago; not an additional increase

If you are affected by the above prices please reach out to your account manager to request a service review - it may be possible to modify tariffs or services to minimize the impact of the increases.

[END OF NOTIFICATION]