In the autumn of 2020, bosses at BT were faced with a problem. Britain’s economy was reeling as the second deadly wave of the Covid pandemic took hold, and millions of Britons were still shut out from their offices, working from home.
Demand had ballooned for BT’s sprawling broadband network and its EE mobile phone service, as the nation Zoomed in to meetings and switched to shopping online. Its contracts, like those of other telecoms companies, allowed it to increase prices each year by linking them to inflation. But in the lockdowns, with the wider economy in freefall, inflation had collapsed close to zero, limiting the firm’s ability to recoup costs.
