Mobiles

Most EE and O2 mobile phone customers will be hit with monthly contract price rises of 1.3% from 30 March 2016. But if you're affected you're unlikely to be able to leave your contract penalty-free, as annual inflationary price rises such as these are written into the firms' mobile contracts.

Hundreds of thousands of customers with mobile network Three have been told they are automatically being moved onto new, more expensive plans, with many likely to see their monthly tariff double from £15 to £30. But you don't have to accept a bills hike – if you're affected, here's what's happening and what you can do about it.

BT's £12.5 billon buyout of mobile phone giant EE has been given the go-ahead after a six-month inquiry by the competition regulator. But if you're an EE customer, you won't see any change to your contract when the merger goes ahead, probably at the end of this month.

Some mobile phone insurance companies are still unfairly rejecting claims, taking too long to process them or handling complaints poorly two years after being told to clean up their act, according to a new investigation by the financial regulator.

TalkTalk customers attempting to claim a free upgrade offered to them in the wake of October's high-profile hack have been left frustrated after logging in to their accounts to find they were unable to select the upgrade they wanted.

TalkTalk has today started giving out free upgrades to all four million of its customers – including free Sky Sports for its TV users – to "say thank you" for sticking with the firm after a data hack left nearly 157,000 account holders' personal details exposed.

George Osborne has pledged to save families up to £470 a year by boosting competition and cutting red tape in areas such as banking, utilities and mobile phones.

The data protection watchdog is to contact more than 1,000 firms that buy and sell people's personal details to ensure they are acting lawfully.

Four million TalkTalk customers will be able to choose a free upgrade to their service from 1 December, following the data hack last month which resulted in more than 150,000 users having their personal details accessed.

Around 4.4 million Virgin Media home phone, broadband and TV customers will be hit with inflation-busting price hikes of 5.4% on average from 1 February 2016, the provider has announced.