2024-04-01: Price inflation notification

Overview: this constitutes our official notification of price rises for specific services types, which come into effect for the April 2024 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 4.9% (as published 14-Feb-2024) 
  • The Retail Prices Index tracks things like train travel, car tax, tobacco & alcohol.
• CPI has risen to 4.2% (as published 14-Feb-2024)
  • 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 2024

All prices exclude VAT @ 20%

The good news first: many of the services have no increase at all, meaning that in real terms (factoring in RPI of 4.9%) this is cost reduction, in addition to services reduced last year too.

• BT FTTPoD: no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
• Microsoft DNS only licenses: no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
• SmarterMail: no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
• Hosting (non-UK data centres): no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
  • Includes VPS servers (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
• Domain registration: no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
• EE mobile (billed by us, not EE): no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• H3 ("3") mobile: no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease) 
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• 10 Gbps DIA: no increase (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
  
  
  
• VF FTTP: 5% increase (real-terms no change)
• BT FTTP: 5% increase (real-terms no change)
• Dedicated Internet Access: 5% increase on all networks (real-terms no change)
  • This includes 100 Mbps up to 1 Gbps; 10 Gbps bearers are unaffected by the price rise.
• Hosting (UK data centres):  5% increase (real-terms no change)
  • This includes VPS servers
  • This includes SD-WAN (bonding) services
• Things (IoT): 5% increase (real-terms no change)
• Microsoft 365 licenses: 5% increase (real-terms no change)
  • Based upon discount applied by renewing on 12-month term
    
    
    
• VMO2 mobile: 7.9% increase (real-terms 3.0% increase)
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• VF mobile: 7.9% increase (real-terms 3.0% increase)
  • This includes SMS, Voice and Data-only (MBB) SIMs
• Cloud Voice: 10% (real-terms 5.1% increase)
• Cloud Voice Go: 10% (real-terms 5.1% increase)
• SIP trunks: 10% (real-terms 5.1% increase)
• Not-digital-only Connectivity: 15% increase (real-terms 10.1% increase)
  • This includes ADSL, FTTC, ISDN, on any network
  • This excludes all FTTP and SoGEA unless specified above
  • Disconnection fee ("cease") remains at £35.59 (real-terms 4.9% decrease)
  • Connection fee (where engineer attends site) remains at £65.00; we will still apply our £50 subsidy towards these types of installations. (real-terms 4.9% decrease)

• PSTN phone lines: 20% increase (real-terms 15.1% 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
    

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]