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Ofcom published its final statement on Openreach’s proposed commercial offers today, 28 September 2026. It formally directs Openreach to withdraw the “£9.50 fibre discount” proposal, but other offers are not rejected.
Timeline
- 1 June 2026 – Openreach signalled its intention with a document “Offers notified by Openreach”, which contains the original commercial proposals. Openreach wanted to give broadband providers a large wholesale discount when they brought additional new full-fibre customers onto the Openreach network.
The discount, applied to Openreach’s wholesale FTTP services, could have been:
• Up to £9.50 per customer per month
• For up to 30 months
• Applied to customers above an ISP’s normal level of new sign-ups
- 28 July – Ofcom proposes to block new Openreach commercial offer to protect fair competition and keep long-term prices low. The full statement can be found here, and the commentary worth noting is
“We propose to intervene to direct Openreach to withdraw its ‘Incremental New to Openreach Offer’, as we consider the charges are not fair and reasonable and could harm the development of network competition. This would be the first time that Ofcom has stepped in to block a commercial offer from Openreach.”
- 28 September – Ofcom issues its full adjudication and documentation, stating:
“We have decided to direct Openreach to withdraw its Incremental New to Openreach Customer Offer.”
The ruling also confirms that Ofcom is not intervening in the other notified Openreach offers.
James Lowther, Openreach’s managing director for commercial, has subsequently issued a statement saying the company put the offer forward at the time “in good faith”, believing it would have benefited customers and competition.
Reasoning for Ofcom blocking the Openreach £9.50 Proposal
The central issue is competition between Openreach and the altnets. Openreach is by far the biggest wholesale fibre network in the UK, while altnets such as CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, Fibrus and nexfibre have invested heavily in competing networks.
Ofcom’s primary concern was that the discount was aimed specifically at new customers, precisely the customers altnets need to attract in order to build their customer bases and reach scale. Ofcom argued that smaller networks might have to match Openreach’s pricing to compete for those customers, but could struggle to do so while recovering the cost of building their networks.
Ofcom’s concern was that the discount was targeted at the marginal customers that rival networks particularly need to win. The regulator therefore concluded that the offer was not fair and reasonable and could harm the development of sustainable network competition.
Ofcom has not blocked Openreach’s entire pricing programme
Openreach had submitted several different offers. Ofcom has allowed the other proposals to proceed because it considers their effective discounts less substantial and therefore less likely to prevent reasonably efficient rival networks from competing.
These included measures such as:
• a £50 one-off discount for new full-fibre customers in areas where Virgin Media O2 operates
• a scheme making higher-speed broadband packages more commercially attractive to ISPs
• other incentives relating to Ethernet and fibre services.
Has “Fairness” really been achieved?
Ofcom said in July 2026 that roughly half of households able to access full fibre had not yet signed up, meaning the remaining customers are particularly important to networks trying to build scale.
Openreach has been rolling out its FTTP network while dozens of altnets have built their own networks.
The next stage is getting households to actually take those connections.
In commentary today, commentators are still taking umbrage with the thought that Ofcom should go further and look at the combined effect of Openreach’s various offers, rather than considering them individually, but Ofcom is drawing a line around how aggressively Openreach can use pricing to compete for new fibre customers.
It matters a great deal to altnets because their business models depend on getting enough customers onto their networks to justify the huge capital expenditure involved in fibre deployment.
Response from nexfibre
“Ofcom’s decision today is a positive step towards protecting competition in the UK fibre market, although we would have liked to see the regulator go further.
“Openreach’s tactic of drip-feeding price changes via special offers needs to stop at a time when competition remains nascent. Ensuring alternative networks have the incentives to invest, grow and achieve scale will be critical to creating credible, sustainable competition.
“That is precisely why our proposed acquisition of Netomnia matters; creating a stronger challenger that can drive competition, investment and greater choice for consumers.”
