Your broadband bill could soon increase by a staggering £7 per month.

That’s the latest news from Openreach who says they are planning the increase to help get better speeds into more UK homes.

Speaking recently at an event in Birmingham, Sharon White, Chief Executive at Ofcom said the UK still lags well behind other countries for broadband speeds and the communications regulator wants to see more operators rolling out improved fully fibre networks to homes.

But boosting the UK’s speeds costs money and it seems BT wants to hand this investment down to consumers via price hikes.

“The biggest player remains BT.” Said White.

“We welcome Openreach’s commitment to reach two million homes with full fibre by 2020.

“The company has also outlined plans to reach 10 million by the mid-2020s, but dependent on up to £7 a month being added to broadband bills.”

Although UK consumers clearly want faster speeds this increase is unlikely to go down well.

BT has already warned that some users will pay more from January 2018 with prices going up by as much as £30 a year.

The popular broadband supplier confirmed that around 10 million customers will be affected over the coming weeks.

However, despite the costs, Ofcom believes it’s vitally important speeds are increased and improved broadband gets beamed into more homes.

Speaking about the need to sort the current broadband issues, Sharon White added: “We cannot afford to stand still. 

“History tells us that, soon, superfast broadband will not be enough. 

“Technological developments – from robotics and automation, to cybersecurity and connected devices, to those we cannot even conceive of today - will all demand faster, more secure, more reliable networks.

“The UK is already playing catch-up and without more investment, we risk falling even further behind.

An Openreach spokesperson added: “We’ve invested more than any business – £11bn over the last decade – to upgrade Britain’s digital infrastructure, helping it become the leading digital economy in the G20.

 “Continuing to invest remains a priority for us and we’re encouraged that our wholesale customers support our ambition to build a large-scale Fibre-to-the-Premises broadband network across the UK.

 “Our programme to upgrade two million premises to full fibre is already well under way, and we’ve been consulting with industry on how to reach 10 million homes and businesses by the mid-2020s.

 “But investing in a major Fibre-to-the-Premises network needs commitment from the whole industry and we’re engaging with Ofcom and Government to build an environment that both encourages and facilitates investment.”

The news comes as Samsung recently announced its plans to invest heavily in the UK’s broadband sector.

Samsung is working on a technology that will dramatically increase our home broadband.

5G is the next generation of mobile signal which will bring faster speeds to the smartphones of the future.

However, Samsung says that 5G could also be used to beam superfast speeds into homes across the world.

The reason 5G is so much faster is that it has a much larger bandwidth which basically means more data can be beamed to more people at much faster speeds.

5G could transform broadband in the UK with speeds of over 20Gbps a genuine possibility - this would allow users to download full 4K movies and games in seconds.

Another benefit of this technology is that it can be installed without anyone needing to come near your home.

5G works like the current 4G signal that transfers data to your smartphone which means it can be beamed into homes without the need for cables.

And this is hugely important as it's often these outdated wires that slow speeds down to a crawl.

Even if your street has superfast fibre installed, if the cable going into your home isn't up to the job your speeds will be throttled.

Samsung plans to install its 5G network on lampposts on city streets with consumers simply needing a receiver in their home to benefit from the technology.

Speaking to Express.co.uk, Wonil Roh, Vice President, Next Generation Communications Business Team IT and Mobile Communications, said the entire industry is working fast with Samsung proud of what they have achieved so far.

5G is a very challenging area but Roh states the ultimate aim is to increase speeds, reduce latency and allow more people to connect at any time.