Altnets lament Ofcom's approval of Openreach price cuts
UK telco watchdog Ofcom has agreed to let BT's network arm Openreach proceed with its wholesale price changes.
May 24, 2023
UK telco watchdog Ofcom has agreed to let BT’s network arm Openreach proceed with its wholesale price changes.
Under its Equinox 2 pricing regime, retail ISPs will get cheaper access to Openreach’s FTTP products in return for committing to longer-term contracts. Ofcom’s approval of the new tariff structure comes as something of a surprise, because after initially appearing to be in favour of it, the regulator then delayed its decision, saying it wanted more time to carry out a more extensive review.
On Wednesday, Ofcom argued that allowing Equinox 2 will lead to lower prices that can be passed on to end users. Nonetheless, its decision has not gone down well with altnets, which maintain that Equinox 2 enables Openreach to leverage its relative size to squeeze smaller wholesalers out of the market before they have had a chance to achieve similar economies of scale.