TalkTalk to hike cost of home phone calls package by £24 a year

The Unlimited UK Calls Boost plan allows TalkTalk customers to call all standard UK landlines and mobiles at any time of day for no extra charge. You're charged at the standard rate if you talk for longer than 60 minutes on a single call - but to avoid this, you can simply hang up at the hour-mark and then call back again.

The plan currently costs £12/month, but that's rising to £14/month on 15 January - which equates to a rise of £24 over a year. TalkTalk won't say how many people are affected but it has 4.2 million customers in total across home phone, broadband, TV and mobile, so it's likely to be thousands.

Use our Broadband and Home Phone Tool to search for the cheapest deals. 

My bill's going up - can I cancel the calls plan?

Affected customers should now have been notified that their bill is going up, by email or post, as TalkTalk says it's giving everyone at least one month's notice. 

If you are affected, the good news is you can cancel your calls plan penalty-free at any point - that's because Unlimited UK Calls Boost is an add-on monthly plan, rather than a contract you're locked into. However before you do, it's worth weighing up what calls you make and if that's definitely the cheapest option for you overall, as for some who use the phone a lot it could still be worth keeping the plan. 

To remove the plan: 

1. Login to your TalkTalk account

2. Choose 'My Services' from the toolbar

3. Select 'Manage home phone boosts' from the dropdown menu

4. Choose the boosts you'd like to remove by unticking the boxes next to them - so in this case you're looking for the Unlimited UK Calls Boost.

5. When you're happy, scroll to the bottom of the page and choose the 'Update' button

6. TalkTalk says it will then give you a summary of the boosts you've opted out of. Choose 'Confirm' to save your changes.

If you don't want to lose the calls package but are unhappy with the price rise, it's also worth speaking to TalkTalk to see if it's possible to haggle a better deal. See our Haggle with Service Providers tips for full help.

What does TalkTalk say? 

A TalkTalk spokesperson says: “Our customers are using their landlines less and less in favour of online services such as WhatsApp and FaceTime, so to continue operating our Unlimited UK Calls Boost we’ve had to reassess our offering."