Utilities
Broadband and the other household bills
People say “utilities” and mean everything that leaves the bank once a month. Broadband is regulated as a communications service. Gas and electricity are regulated separately. A company that sells both can still only switch them one regime at a time. This page keeps the prices apart.
Reviewed 5 November 2026 · 6 min read · Independent · Not a price list
Different regulators, different switches
Ofcom regulates residential broadband, landline and the switching rules that include One Touch Switch. Ofgem regulates gas and electricity. A broadband switch does not notify your energy supplier. An energy switch does not notify your broadband provider. If a single brand bills both, you still have to ask which contract you are changing.
OneTouchSwitch, this website, is a broadband comparison and information service. We do not compare energy tariffs, we do not quote unit rates, and we do not switch gas or electricity. A sentence here about “utility prices” means: do not let a broadband advert absorb the energy bill, and do not let an energy discount decide the broadband term.
Water, council tax and insurance are further away still. They do not move when the router does. Anyone who presents a single “household saving” across all of them is adding unlike numbers.
When one company sells several services
Some retailers, including multi-service specialists, sell broadband beside energy and other products and apply a discount for taking more than one. The discount can be genuine. It can also make a mediocre broadband contract look cheap because the energy side is doing the work, or the reverse. Price the broadband with the method on our price-reading page: intro, later price, upfront, stated rise, exit fee. Then look at the energy offer using the energy supplier’s own information, not this site.
Leaving the broadband via One Touch Switch does not move the electricity or the gas. Ask, before you switch the line, what happens to a multi-service discount if one product leaves. Get that in writing. A discount that dies when the broadband leaves can erase the broadband “saving” on the first energy statement.
The broadband may sit on Openreach or another wholesale network while the energy sits on the national grid. The engineer who installs full fibre is not your meter engineer. Book the right visit. Do not take a day off for the wrong one.
How to read a mixed bill
Split the direct debit in your notes even if the bank shows one figure. Write the broadband line, the energy line, and any membership or bundle fee on three rows. A rise in one row is not a rise in the others. From 17 January 2025 a new broadband contract’s in-contract rise, if there is one, should be stated in pounds and pence. Energy price changes follow energy rules, which are not that sentence. Do not assume one disclosure regime covers the whole bill.
An introductory broadband price beside a variable energy tariff is not a twelve-month household price. The energy half can move for reasons that have nothing to do with the router. If you need a household total, date it, and say which half is fixed.
We will not publish a model weekly shop, a model unit rate, or a model broadband tariff. Those models age in weeks. The method does not.
Debt, meters and the line
Energy debt and a prepayment meter are not broadband problems, and a broadband provider’s social tariff does not clear them. Conversely, a broadband exit fee is not an energy debt. Keep the conversations on the right account. Mixing them on one phone call produces a confused note on both.
If you are choosing a cheaper broadband product because the household is under pressure, use the social-tariff note and ask a provider who can serve the address. Do not take a long broadband term solely because a bundle advert mentioned the energy bill.
Nothing on this page is credit advice or energy advice. For energy, use the supplier and the official energy guidance. For broadband, use the provider and the notes on this site. We are not a debt charity.
Questions
- Will One Touch Switch move my gas or electricity?
- No. It is a broadband and landline process. Energy has its own switch. A brand that sells both still changes them separately.
- Do you compare energy prices?
- No. We do not quote unit rates or energy tariffs. Price broadband here, and price energy with the supplier.
- What happens to a bundle discount if I switch broadband?
- Ask before you switch. The discount may depend on keeping both services. Get the answer in writing. One Touch Switch will not preserve it for you.
- Is a broadband price rise the same as an energy price rise?
- No. New broadband contracts follow Ofcom’s pounds-and-pence disclosure rule. Energy follows energy rules. Read each row of a mixed bill on its own.
- Can a multi-service firm be a reasonable broadband provider?
- Yes, if the line itself is the right network, term and price path at your premises. Judge the line first. The bundle is a second decision.
- Are you Ofgem or Ofcom?
- Neither. Ofcom regulates the broadband switching rules. Ofgem regulates energy. We are an independent information site.