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BT warns it will increase phone bills by 6.5%
Satellite John
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28902300
BT has warned millions of customers it is increasing its prices by up to 6.5% from December this year.
It will increase the line rental for direct debit customers by 6.25% to £16.99, and the rate for calling UK landlines by 6.44%.
The set-up fee for landline calls, residential calls, to the speaking clock and call return charges will also increase for some or all customers.
But BT said it had added "extra money-saving options" for poorer customers.
'Taken care'
The majority of its customers were on inclusive call packages and would not pay set-up fees or pence per minute charges on calls, said BT.
BT's option for low-income customers, BT Basic, will stay the same at £5.10 a month with a call allowance.
John Petter, chief executive at BT Consumer, said: "We have taken care to make sure that low-income customers avoid price increases."
He added: "We have added extra money-saving options for low-income customers and for customers who only want a phone line for calls."
Broadband prices are going up by as much as 6.49%, although BT said its current "high profile" press and TV broadband offers would stay at the same price.
It added that call bills had fallen 14% in the past five years.
Sky, BT's rival, is set to increase some of its tariffs from September.
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Comments
This is immensely attractive to Phone Companies as it is a regular income that compensates them for the fact that calls and broadband income are going down. It's also hard for customers to escape!
HOWEVER it may, at some stage, backfire on them as I know people who have moved totally to mobile phones for BOTH calls and broadband - and thus pay NO line rental!
The move has already been dubbed a "football tax".
BT should be forced to use BT vision/youview/Sports subscribers to pay for all their new media contracts, not BT customers.
I'm not with BT, but this will effect everyone wont it due to us all having to pay a line rental tariff on whatever firm you are with, which goes to good old BT as they own the phone lines.
BT should have their monopoly taken off them.
GOT
The only time I use my landline now is to answer the shitty sales calls that you cannot avoid despite being with TPS etc.
Line rental is becoming a licence to print money at the moment as the alternatives are unavailable outside of London and are being closed by competitors. As with energy firms, once one puts prices up, everyone else follows and competition seems to be lacking.
I know of one company which uses 4G purely for Internet without line rental but only within London. Maybe that will provide competition against landline broadband as long as the capacity doesn't become a hurdle.
eg. for 100Mb:
With Landline: £36.49/month (Broadband £20.50 + line rental £15.99)
Without Landline: £33/month (from 1st October 2014)
I am with Talk Talk but it is safe to assume the will announce another rise soon on top of the recent one. It's getting beyond a joke now.
I can't see why companies can't follow VMs suite and allow broadband without the need of line rental.
I was close to switching to BT yesterday glad i held off.
BT does something and all the others follow suit almost at once.
But Ofcom are just in cosy relationships with the telcos, so it'll never happen.
Rubbish. Try living in some other countries before you make such sweeping generalizations. When you combine prices, indirect and direct taxes, general cost of living and average wages, etc. the UK is slightly better than the EU average.
Do you both not think Sky will follow suit? Of course they will.
Of course, it says some of Skys tariffs are going up in Sept, id still expect their line rental to be a bit cheaper though, and thats all id be paying on this line, as my phone service line is downstairs on a seperate one, which ive got through SSE, as they cheaper than BT.
Just checked, my line rental through SSE for my downstairs line, its only £14.49, my BT line rental is £16.
That's Tesco's unlimited broadband* + phone line rental which includes free anytime calls. (Nothing to pay BT the line rental)
Even cheaper if you decide to pay for your calls rather than have them inclusive. They've provided excellent service so far - and, no. I don't work for them and hate shopping in their gigantic megahangers.
I get around 12mb/s, plenty for streaming HQ vids etc.
When mum was alive she used the landline more to phone family and friends in the Falkirk area.
BT Sport as someone said is not really free as they putting prices up else where to cover it.
I have BT TV though Youview and although its a ok service. BT are starting to get as dear as Sky and Virgin for there services.
Darren
Mind you, if they had looked further, they would have found that - for the last few years - Sky's TV prices have gone up on 1st September while the Broadband and Phone have gone up on 1st December!:o
There maybe a choice of VOIP providers that are cheaper but you still need a phone line and pay line rental to the likes of BT.
Darren