Major price hikes coming for TalkTalk broadband, TV and home phone customers
TalkTalk broadband, TV and home phone customers are to be hit with price hikes from 1 June, and the provider is scrapping free local calls for 200,000 users from 1 July.
From today, TalkTalk will begin notifying its customers via email and letter of a number of price rises taking effect soon, including a £1.50/month increase to certain broadband and TV packages.
The telecoms provider, which says it has about 4 million customers, last increased prices on 1 December 2014 – see the TalkTalk customers to be hit with price hikes MSE News story.
However, the provider confirms that customers within their minimum contract period – usually 18 months – can leave penalty-free as long as they get in touch to cancel within 30 days of receiving the price increase notice.
Those outside of their minimum contract period can also leave penalty-free as long as they give 30 days' notice. See MoneySavingExpert.com's Cheap Broadband guide to see if you can cut your bills.
What prices are changing?
From 1 June
Below are the key changes affecting customers from 1 June (the actual date the price hike will come into effect depends on when a customer took out the contract). TalkTalk says that line rental, which customers pay with the below packages, will remain at £16.70/month, or £180.36 (equivalent to £15.03 per month) if paid upfront.
Package prices – what's changing?
| Package name | Price increase | New price per month (excluding £16.70/month line rental) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simply Broadband | +£1.50 | £5 | |||
| Essentials TV | +£1.50 | £10 | |||
| Plus TV | +£1.50 | £20 | |||
| Essentials Broadband and calls | +£1.50 | £10 | |||
| Plus Broadband and calls | +£1.50 | £20 | |||
| Other packages (i) | +£1.50 | Varies – customers should check their 'MyAccount' for details | |||
(i) Excluding AOL packages, TalkTalk calls-only and TalkTalk calls and line rental packages. These stay the same price. | |||||
From 1 June, anyone who cancels their contract within the minimum period – barring those who do so within 30 days of notification of price rises – will pay the following early-exit penalties:
Early-exit fees – what's changing?
| Package name | Early termination fee (i) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simply Broadband | £10.50 (up from £9) | ||||
| Essentials (phone and broadband or TV) | £14.50 (up from £13) | ||||
| Plus (phone and broadband or TV) | £22 (up from £20) | ||||
(i) Charge per month for the remainder of the minimum contract. | |||||
The provider says the following call costs are also increasing:
From 8 May
Calls to 118508: These will cost £2.74 for a one-minute call, and an an additional £2.74 for every minute thereafter.
From 1 July
Free local calls scrapped except for those making calls from its evening and weekend and/or anytime call plans. Normal calls will cost 11.5p/minute, and there will be a 16p connection charge, to boot. TalkTalk says this is a legacy deal which it stopped offering a number of years ago.
Charges for non-geographical numbers starting 08, 09 and 118: Calls to these numbers, usually to contact banks, government services and to vote in TV shows will be made up of two parts – an access charge (from the provider) and a service charge (charged by the owner of the number you're calling) under Ofcom requirements. TalkTalk's access charge is 5p/minute, see its website for a full list of service charges. This rule excludes 0800 and 0808 free phone numbers.
What does TalkTalk say?
A TalkTalk spokesperson says: "We're committed to providing Britain's best value TV, broadband, calls and mobile as well as the best service possible... Over the past year we've made our broadband smarter, faster and more reliable, while also adding more great entertainment to TalkTalk TV. In making these improvements, some prices will increase."
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8 October 2024
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