Broadband and mobile users to be hit with price hikes of up to 17.3% – here's what you need to know

Millions of customers are out of contract and free to leave, so check if you can switch and save

These firms have millions of customers who are out of contract and have simply been rolled on to often pricier tariffs without signing up for them. But if that's you, you can leave at any point penalty-free - and given the best broadband and mobile deals tend to be for newbies, there's a good chance you're overpaying anyway. Benchmark prices elsewhere and switch if you can get a cheaper deal.

See full help in our How to find cheap broadband deals guide and use our Broadband Unbundled and Cheap Mobile Finder tools to see what other deals are out there.

Alternatively, if you're willing to stay, you can try haggling and see if your provider will match or beat a deal you've found elsewhere. Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk, Three, and O2 are among the top 10 companies to haggle with, according to our latest poll of MSE users. See our broadband haggling and mobile haggling guides for more help.

Within your minimum contract term? In most cases, you CAN'T cancel penalty-free

If you're in contract – meaning you actively signed up to a new tariff within the last year or possibly two (do check) – the price rise will likely be part of that contract. In most cases this means you won't be able to cancel penalty-free.

There are two main exceptions where you may be able to leave penalty-free, which we've set out below. Crucially however, this right only applies within 30 days of getting your price rise notification. This means it's now likely too late for most, though it's still worth checking if you have either of these:

• Sky broadband and home phone – price hikes on these packages aren't written into contracts, so you can leave within 30 days of being notified about the increases without having to pay early termination fees. However, this is NOT the case for TV packages. See our Sky prices hikes story for full info.
  
  
• Virgin Media broadband, home phone and TV – Virgin's price hikes for this year were not written into contracts, so you can leave penalty-free within 30 days of getting your price rise notification. See our Virgin Media price hikes story for full info.
  

In other cases, if you're unhappy with the price rise, you should note when your contract's due to end and start looking for new deals nearer the time.