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Universal Service Obligation (USO)
The Universal Service Obligation for broadband is a UK-wide measure that provides every home and business in the UK with the legal right to request a decent, affordable broadband connection. Ofcom, the communications regulator in the UK, define these in conjunction with the UK government. As of March 2022, the Government have defined a decent connection as one that can deliver at least 10 Mbit/s download speeds and 1 Mbit/s upload speeds. Ofcom have defined an affordable connection as one that costs less than £45 per month.

The UK has two Universal Service Providers (USP), BT, responsible for the entirety of the UK and KCOM, which is responsible for Hull. The legal right to request a decent broadband connection can only be exercised with one of the two providers as defined. A cost threshold of up to £3,400 per premises applies, which means if the work involved is estimated to be above the threshold, the provider is not obligated to fulfil the request. However, if the customer agrees to pay the excess costs, then the request must be fulfilled by the provider. In a report published on 16 December 2021 by Ofcom, the watchdog estimated that around 123,000 premises (0.4%) did not have a decent connection.

Special tariffs
As Universal Service Providers, BT and KCOM are required to have at least one special tariff for customers who are receiving a form of income support payments from the government, such as Universal Credit or Jobseekers' Allowance.

In May 2021, BT launched BT Home Essentials, its new means-tested service, replacing BT Basic. At the time of launch, Home Essentials had a monthly cost of £15 with average download speeds of 36 Mbit/s. For £20 per month, eligible customers could opt for increased average download speeds of 67 Mbit/s.