The pounds-and-pence year

For a decade, British broadband contracts carried a little clause that did a lot of work: each April the monthly price could move by inflation plus a fixed extra, commonly 3.9%. You did not know the pounds when you signed. From 17 January 2025, Ofcom stopped providers writing that formula into new contracts. Any future rise has to be a number you can read — £3, £4 — and a date you can circle.

What actually changed

The rule sits in General Condition C1. On a new broadband, mobile or pay-TV contract the provider must show the starting monthly price, the exact pounds-and-pence amount of any later increase, and when it lands, before you are bound. Ofcom’s 2026 pricing report found the first wave of those pounds-and-pence rises clustered between £2 and £4 a month for fixed broadband.

The rule is not retrospective. Households still on older wording could see an April 2026 increase calculated from December CPI. Industry later committed, in the government’s Telecoms Consumer Charter, that April 2026 would be the last inflation-linked core-subscription rise of that kind. If you are unsure which world your contract lives in, the letter you were sent is the evidence — not a forum post.

A clearer rise is still a rise. The win is that you can add it up before you order, not that the bill froze.

What April 2026 looked like

Public announcements clustered around £3–£4 a month for the large retail brands, typically from late March or 1 April. Some providers, notably Sky and NOW Broadband in recent cycles, have combined a rise with a 30-day penalty-free exit. Others treat a contracted pounds-and-pence step as part of the bargain you already accepted. Alt-nets such as YouFibre, and a handful of independents, still sell a true fixed price for the minimum term. That is a product difference, not a moral ranking.

How to read the next contract

The pounds-and-pence year did not make broadband cheap. It made the expensive part legible. That is enough of a change to be worth using — and not enough of a change to skip the arithmetic.