We Have Been Betrayed Again

You think you've been switching broadband providers. You haven't. Every cable in the ground belongs to one company. Every ISP you've ever paid is renting from them. And in Q1 2025, Britain became the only country in Europe where broadband prices went up — while Spain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands all saw theirs fall. This is the story of how a state monopoly was sold to private shareholders in 1984, how the regulator built to fix it spent forty years confirming it instead, and why your bill is going up £4 a month every March until at least 2031 — with the regulator's blessing. Two things you can actually do, both covered in the video: — Check if you qualify for a social broadband tariff. If you're on Universal Credit, PIP, Pension Credit, ESA or several other benefits, you almost certainly qualify for a discounted deal with no annual price rise. Most people who qualify don't claim it. — Every time Openreach misses an appointment, you're entitled to automatic compensation. £15 per day of delay. £75 if an engineer doesn't show up. £30 per day if a repair takes longer than two working days. If it hasn't arrived, contact your ISP in writing. Ofcom automatic compensation scheme: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-b... ※ Sources — Ofcom Telecoms Access Review 2026–31 (published 17 March 2026) — Ofcom: Prohibiting inflation-linked price rises (July 2024) — Tarifica: European Broadband Price Study (July 2025) — ISPreview: Study of Six Major European Countries (July 2025) — ISPreview: Openreach steps in as broadband rivals abandon rural plans (April 2026) — ISPreview: Quarter of UK broadband users view £4 price hike as unmanageable (January 2026) — The Register: No big changes to UK broadband despite lack of competition (March 2025) — The Register: UK watchdog won't block Openreach's discount fibre pricing (May 2023) — CityFibre Competition Act complaint to CMA and Ofcom (2023) — Light Reading: BT Openreach sets the cat among altnets with Equinox 2 (2023) — MoneySavingExpert: Inflation-linked broadband hikes banned (July 2024) — Uswitch: Broadband price rises 2026 explained — Ofcom: Automatic compensation scheme for broadband customers — British Academy: Futures Past of the UK's Digital Communications Infrastructure (2024)