Copper line rentals double in 13 days: WLR hits about £21.30 a month from 1 October

On 1 October 2026 — thirteen days from today — Openreach's third and final copper price rise takes effect, and the WLR basic rental goes to about £21.30 a month excluding VAT. That is double the £10.65 a business line cost before April. Openreach's stated aim was prices doubling in the final three months before the PSTN switches off — and that final stretch is here, with the network closing on 31 January 2027, 135 days away.

How a copper line got to double price

The rises were structured in three steps, each calculated on the original base price:

• 1 April 2026: +20%, taking WLR basic from £10.65 to about £12.78 ex VAT.
• 1 July 2026: +40% of the base — about £17.04.
• 1 October 2026: a further +40% of the base — about £21.30, double the 2025 price.

The rises cover WLR basic and the other WLR variants, and the fine print matters: WLR solus is the standalone voice-only line Openreach itself describes as typically used for traditional landline calls, alarm systems or emergency lines — exactly the unlabelled connections most businesses forgot they had. The voice line on a part-fibre (WLR+FTTC) connection rises too. Retail bills differ (providers add margin and VAT on top), but the direction is the same.

The maths of staying put

From 1 October, a business that keeps a copper line rents a dying circuit at double price for its final four months — roughly £85 in wholesale rental alone before the network quits on 31 January 2027. Openreach is upfront that this is deliberate: the rises exist to encourage migration, and it notes that All-IP products are often already cheaper than WLR even before the rises took effect. Our PSTN switch-off guide has the line audit to run first.

Exit before the second doubling bites

1. Port the number, not just the line. Porting is free of direct charges under Ofcom's rules, as we covered in Ofcom's porting rules, and a DIDcomms virtual number keeps the published number answering over SIP.
2. Compare rents like for like. DIDcomms' £9.97-a-month plan — bundled minutes, ten concurrent calls, including VAT — is less than half the ~£21.30 ex VAT a single copper line will cost from 1 October. Light-use numbers stay free on PAYG.
3. Give alarm lines an IP route. WLR solus lines feeding alarm or emergency panels need signalling, not voice — DIDcomms' OpenTAP gateway accepts the panel's TAP messages over TCP/IP at 5p a message, with no line rental at all.

Related: 141 days left: the PSTN countdown · BT hits 95% Digital Voice as broadband pauses begin