Site History from 1996
Version 325 in early April 2026 updates BT (business and residential), CIX (business and residential), EE (residential), IDNet (business), PlusNet (residential), Sky Talk (residential), TalkTalk (residential) and Virgin Media (residential).
Many operators have implemented annual price increases at the end of March. But these seem mostly only for existing customers. Before the end of March several web sites showed prices from the end of March, but these were rarely fully implemented with lower or no increases on 31st March 2026 for new customers.
Pre-Digital Phone Line (PDPL) - BT Business is charging £53/month excluding VAT for PDPL circuits, no connection charge and no customer premises visit for migration. Call pricing for PDPL is Business Call Essentials. More information at https://www.bt.com/about/all-ip/case-studies/pre-digital-phone-line
BT has increased residential prices from 31st March 2026, broadband packages will increase by £4/month and out of bundle call charges by 5%. Standard line rental is up £1 to £31.20/month, PAYG calls up to 31.05p/min, packaged inland calls and access charge up to 23.55p/min, mobile to 28.29p/min, setup now 36.16p per call. All international call costs up. Call package costs are unchanged. 12 month broadband contracts now seem the same price as 24 month contracts, unless the web site is showing the wrong prices. Higher full fibre speeds are up a little, having gone down recently.
BT increased business rental and package prices from 1st April 2025. Standard business line rental is up to £47.79/month, value line rental up to £38.95/month, ISDN-2e up to £101.77/month, ISDN-30e channel up to £45.78/month, all network and calling feature rental prices up. Broadband Essential prices generally seem lower than before, but price book has double the prices as the main web site which are now quoted. Broadband is now available with or without digital voice. Essential, Standard Fibre (FTTC) 38M £24.95/month, 76m £28,95/month, Essential Full Fibre 100M £29.95/month, 150M £34.95/month, 300M £39.95/month, 500M £44.95/month, 900M £49.95/month. Digital voice line £3/month extra, extra £3/month each April for broadband, £1/month extra for voice. Call prices appear unchanged. Annual business price increases each April are broadband packages £3/month and Cloud Voice £1/month per license.
Version 324 in late February 2026 updates Community Fibre (business and residential), Sky Talk (residential), TalkTalk (residential), Virgin Media (residential).and Vodafone (residential), Your Co-op (residential) and Zen (residential).
In December 2025, Openreach terminated all existing Wholesale Line Rental contracts and replaced them with 90 day rolling contacts. From April 2026, Openreach implement regular price increases for Wholesale Line Rental, including ISDN, to persuade resellers to migrate to SOGEA of full fibre broadband, with VoIP. WLR increases 20% in April, 40% in July, and then to double the current price in October 2026. Resellers could absorb these increases, or pass them on to end users. After January 2027, any remaining eligible lines will be migrated to a basic service called Emergency Voice Access Circuits (EVAC) using PDPL (see below) with essential voice features only, until finally migrated. EVAC lines will not support ADSL or FTTC which will have ceased. Openreach has a new FAQ for WLR Withdrawal.
In February 2026, BT Openreach had 21.4 million premises passed with full fibre FTTP, aiming to reach 25 million properties by the end of 2026 and a further five million by 2030, then 99% of premises by 2032. Smaller full fibre operators under Project Gigabit BDUK cover another 215,00 premises out of one million planned.
While Openreach plans to migrate the majority of PSTN telephone line to VoIP digital voice over broadband by 2027, some lines will take longer for many reasons, potentially leaving some without telephone service. So BT Wholesale is installing new Pre-Digital Phone Line (PDPL) Media Gateway equipment at most telephone exchanges, to provide an emulation of the PSTN service using BT Wholesale VoIP. These lines will be called Emergency Voice Access Circuits (EVAC) with essential voice only, but will support modems for data circuits like fax. PDPL is intended for single telephone lines like lift and emergency lines, ATMs and payment terminals, and the vulnerable using fall alarms, etc. PDPL is a temporary solution and will disappear as 4,500 exchange buildings close from 2030, some earlier. The copper pair for PDPL will become an Openreach SOTAP Analogue access line. EVAC pricing is not yet announced. PDPL will not support ISDN.
Site News - Post Codes for Numbering Members - The numbering zip file now includes a new file Exch-PostCodes.csv with 2,185,253 records, same data as CodeLook post code lookup, may be useful to check area codes against post code for number porting. The file identifies which BT exchange serves each post code, with our locality name, geo information and area code. For the full list of dialling code, looking up locality in AllCodes table. This data is based on Openreach cabinet data from 2020 which covered most post codes, with those newly allocated since or missing allocated to the nearest exchange.
Beware the original data had errors, my own post code was shown twice, once against an exchange`15km away. So each row includes the distance in metres to the telephone exchange, to allow checking it's sensible. There are about 600 post codes shown as more than 15km from their allocated exchange, often these are duplicated post codes when seen in CodeLook, but currently this database only shows a single post code. We'll try to clean up this data shortly.
Note there is no FTTC cabinet information since most of these have become obsolete as full fibre is installed. Also, the road name is from Ordnance Survey data nearest to the post code, so not as accurate as the commercial Post Code database.
Version 323 in early January 2026 updates BT (residential), Andrews & Arnold (residential and business), Community Fibre (business and residential), Direct Save Telecom (residential), EE (residential) and PlusNet (residential).
Dial 123 has disappeared and been removed. Freecall seems to be mobile app based, so has been removed. LocalPhone is only for specific overseas numbers so has been removed. Teletop, TopupNow, WebCall and CheapestChat (Simplyfone) have all been removed. The call through or two stage dialling market was an excellent way to maker cheap calls 20 years ago, but VoIP, mobile apps and high access charges have caused it's demise. Some Finarea services remain because they use 0800 access.
Although BT has stopped distributing printed telephone directories, they are still being created as downloadable PDF files, which can be searched for street names: https://www.bt.com/help/the-phone-book/a-z-directory-finder
Version 322 in early November 2025 updates Community Fibre (business and residential), Sky Talk (residential).and Vodafone (residential). .
As discussed in the June update, the CodeLook web page has been subject to continual unauthorised access for almost 12 months, peaking at over one million different IP addresses in over 150 countries each week, but still continuing at 300,000 different IP each week, only a few of which reached the CodeLook page.
So the block on web site access from outside Western Europe and the USA needs to continue, unless a paid member and on a white list of allowed IP addresses.
Version 321 in late August 2025 updates BT (residential), Community Fibre (business and residential), EE (residential), PlusNet (residential), Sky Talk (residential) and Virgin Media (residential). JT (Jersey) has been removed since not relevant to the UK broadband market.
As discussed in the June update, the CodeLook web page has been subject to continual unauthorised access for several months, initially it was several million accesses from two IPs at Alibaba Cloud in Hong Kong, then Alibaba and Hunwei Cloud data centers around the world, then VPNs, finally a massive botnet that in July meant accesses were coming from one million different IP addresses in over 150 countries each week, but probably all originating from one single user attempting to build a numbering database, rather than becoming a paid member. To protect the server, the site now blocks access from most countries outside Western Europe and the USA, unless paid member and on a white list of allowed IP addresses. The attacks slowed during July after country blocking and an improved firewall, only about 100,000 unique IP addresses each week, of which few reached the server, and finally at the end of August attacks have slowed much further to only hundreds daily.
While CodeLook is primarily about looking up information about telephone numbers, 10 years ago we added a post code database allowing checking of which of which exchange BT telephone numbers were connected, based on broadband FTTC cabinet data that was also displayed, which was useful back in 2012 when FTTC was rolling out across the country, but is now mostly irrelevant since over half FTTC customers are now Full Fibre (FTTP) instead with millions more being converted each year. So CodeLook no longer allows searching postal codes or cabinets, at least for free members, paid members still have access to these searches.
Version 320 in late June 2025 updates EE (residential), KC (business and residential), seethelight (residential) and Vodafone (residential). Kesher Communications seems to have disappeared, so has been removed.
In May 2025, BT Openreach had 18,4 million premises passed with full fibre FTTP, adding about 4 million each year and reach 25 million properties by the end of 2026, leaving up to 8 million with only part fibre broadband from BT, but perhaps with service from other fibre providers. 9.3 million premises at 943 exchanges are subject to stop sell so can not order PSTN/ISDN, not sure why that is half the figure of premises actually passed by FTTP.
Version 319 in late April 2025 updates BT (residential), CIX (business and residential), Community Fibre (business and residential), TalkTalk (residential), Virgin Media (residential).and Vodafone (residential).
Version 318 in late March 2025 updates BT (residential and business), EE (residential), PlusNet (residential), Sky Talk (residential), TalkTalk (residential), Virgin Media (residential).and Vodafone (residential).
BT increased residential prices by about 6.4% from 31st March 2025, residential line rental is up £1.80 to £30.20, all call packages up. Standard plan inland and access call charge up 1p to 22.43p/min with a 34.44p call set-up, mobile 25.45p/min. PAYG packages are up 1.5p to 29.58p/min but no set-up. All call and network feature prices up. International calls all up as well. .Broadband package prices up and down due to short term promotional deals, web pages now clearly show prices for this year, April 2026 and April 2027, where the prices goes up £3 each year.
BT increased business rental and package prices by about 6.4% from 1st April 2025. Standard business line rental is up to £44.53/month, value line rental up to £36.20/month, ISDN-2e up to £96.91/month, ISDN-30e channel up to £42.66/month, all network and calling feature rental prices up. Cloud Voice Express is now sold without an inclusive VoIP phone, so is much cheaper at £8/month or £20/month including unlimited inland calls. Monthly rental for BT One Plan inclusive packages all up, Essential Unlimited call package up, but call prices unchanged.
All BT and reseller landline copper PSTN landline and ISBN services cease from 31st January 2027 (delayed from December 2025). All existing master line sockets will then cease to work, and telephones and extension wiring will instead need to plugged into a broadband router or VoIP line adaptor to receive digital voice telephone service over the internet.
In February 2025, BT Openreach had 17.2 million premises passed with full fibre FTTP, adding about 4 million each year and reach 25 million properties by the end of 2026, leaving up to 8 million with only part fibre broadband from BT, but perhaps with service from other fibre providers. Of those 17 million passed homes, only 6 million have so far taken up full fibre, about half from BT, the rest from Openreach resellers.