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Internet provider Lit Fibre, which harnesses CityFibre’s national UK Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (they originally ran their own fibre network too – here), has today introduced a new national broadband pricing framework that charges residential consumers more for those on their National (off-net) vs Local (on-net) network tiers.
The provider’s announcement doesn’t explain precisely what they mean by “National” or “Local“, particularly since they only serve CityFibre’s network areas (c.4.6 million UK premises), but through our testing we’ve been able to confirm that it references the difference between the price they charge in areas where they built their own FTTP vs areas where the FTTP was first built by CityFibre. Clearly, Lit Fibre still has some degree of beneficial access to their original network areas, despite all now being owned by CityFibre.
Lit Fibre has a number of different types of broadband packages and contract lengths, which makes it a bit difficult to summarise the impact of this without overloading our visitors with too much information. Instead we’ll simplify by focusing on just their ‘Speed’ packages when taken via a longer 24-month minimum contract term, which includes a wireless router, free installation and a pledge of no mid-contract price hikes.
Lit Fibre Package Pricing – Local vs National
Lit 100Mbps (symmetric)
Local Price: £22.99 (monthly)
National Price: £26.49
Lit 500Mbps
Local Price: £25.99
National Price: £32.49
Lit 1000Mbps
Local Price: £26.99
National Price: £32.49
We assume the Lit 1000Mbps package is on some sort of special offer in National (off-net) areas, which would explain why the price is the same as on their National 500Mbps tier. In any case, there’s clearly a fairly sizeable saving to be had if you’re lucky enough to be covered by one of Lit Fibre’s original on-net (Local) FTTP areas. On the other hand, £32.49 for a gigabit broadband package off-net is still very cheap.
However, it should be noted that the post-contract prices for all of these packages will rise, with Lit Fibre’s T&Cs indicating that Lit 100 becomes £34.95, while Lit 500 becomes £44.95 and Lit 1000 rises to £49.95. At the time of writing, Lit Fibre’s T&Cs do not include the same Local vs National distinction, so we assume those post-contract rates apply to both.