"Around 10 million BT customers are being told that phone and broadband prices are to rise by up to 6.5% in another blow to households struggling with soaring utility bills.

BT is hiking its prices from January 4, but denied the move was linked to its push into sports broadcasting.

The increases follow the group cutting the price of broadband to £10 for copper and £15 for fibre, and giving away BT Sport for "free" with broadband.
Line rental will go up by 54p, or 3.5%, a month to £15.99, and other prices such as set-up fees and price-per-minute rates will increase by around 6%.
The main calls packages BT sells now will remain the same price but existing customers on older tariffs will see a rise of around 6%.
The formerly free BT Answer 1571 and BT Privacy with Caller Display will cost £1.75 a month.
Broadband prices will increase by up to 6.5%, although the current broadband offers will remain at the same price including broadband and weekend calls for £10 and Infinity and weekend calls for £15.
Mobile calls will be unaffected."

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-09-27/prices-set-to-rise-for-bt-customers/

I have discovered Key rate changes include:
• Call set-up fees: Will rise from 13.87p to 14.76p per call.
•Daytime calls to UK landlines and 0870 numbers: Will rise from 8.41p/minute to 8.95p/minute.
•Evening calls to UK landlines and 0870 numbers: Will rise from 1.11p/minute to 1.18p/minute.

and also early termination fees will apparently rise.


You should be able to leave penalty-free
If you're still in contract, under BT's terms and conditions, as a price rise is considered to be to your "detriment", you have 10 days from receiving notice of a price rise directly from BT to terminate your contract without incurring an early termination fee.

You should  get your notification letter or email next week.

Just to make it clear the call price increases mentioned above are for customers on the old call tariffs.

bigjohn wrote on Sep 27^th, 2013 at 7:15pm:

You should be able to leave penalty-free If you're still in contract, under BT's terms and conditions, as a price rise is considered to be to your "detriment", you have 10 days from receiving notice of a price rise directly from BT to terminate your contract without incurring an early termination fee. You should  get your notification letter or email next week.

So when I get the letter, what do I have to do?  Do I just phone them and give a month's notice, or would the service expire when the next monthly payment is due?

I have BT line rental paid in advance (due for renewal in November) and BT 40Mgb Broadband on special offer of £10pm (due for renewal in June), plus BT Sport HD.

I'm certainly not paying for caller display and won't miss BT Sport (I only watch the one footy match a week). Both Sky and Talk Talk have attractive looking packages, as does Plusnet.

poppasmurf wrote on Sep 27^th, 2013 at 8:04pm:

bigjohn wrote on Sep 27th, 2013 at 7:15pm: You should be able to leave penalty-free If you're still in contract, under BT's terms and conditions, as a price rise is considered to be to your "detriment", you have 10 days from receiving notice of a price rise directly from BT to terminate your contract without incurring an early termination fee. You should  get your notification letter or email next week. So when I get the letter, what do I have to do?  Do I just phone them and give a month's notice, or would the service expire when the next monthly payment is due? I have BT line rental paid in advance (due for renewal in November) and BT 40Mgb Broadband on special offer of £10pm (due for renewal in June), plus BT Sport HD. I'm certainly not paying for caller display and won't miss BT Sport (I only watch the one footy match a week). Both Sky and Talk Talk have attractive looking packages, as does Plusnet.

No you would have to terminate it yourself . If you do it by phone i would back it up in writing just in case.

However i think you might have a problem because your line rental is going up and your broadband is not. So whilst you can terminate the phone line at no extra cost they would most likely want to charge you an early termination fee for the broadband as you want have a BT line to use it on. Your need to check that out with them.

bigjohn wrote on Sep 28^th, 2013 at 1:56am:

However i think you might have a problem because your line rental is going up and your broadband is not. So whilst you can terminate the phone line at no extra cost they would most likely want to charge you an early termination fee for the broadband as you want have a BT line to use it on. Your need to check that out with them.

This would presumably depend on whether they are separate contracts. If they are then this is a steaky way of getting customers not to leave their phone service under the "detriment" clause, or else effectively incur a penalty for doing so.

I wouldn't think that voice phone and broadband are separate as they are invariably sold as single packages these days.

I know that Line Rental Saver is a separate 12-month contract to the rest of the service. Line Rental Saver is where you pay 12 months' worth of line rental upfront in one go and incurs a lower "per month" charge than paying it monthly or quarterly.

Where the two don't run concurrently then there might be issue where one incurs a penalty (or effectively incurs a penalty such as in the forfeiting of a portion of the line rental paid in one lump sum under the Line Rental Saver scheme).

There is a web page covering the changes at http://bt.com/callprices and a helpline 0800 085 7357.

BT confirm the right to terminate "affected" services within ten days of receipt of the personal notification, without incurring Early Termination Charges. I would argue that any service which would not be delivered if the increased line rental were not paid is "affected" by these changes. In the case mentioned, withdrawal only from the Broadband offer would be subject to an Early Termination Charge, but this could not apply if the line rental was terminated.

It would be interesting to hear BT's view on this.

The poster says his Telephone Contract ends before his broadband one.

" I have BT line rental paid in advance (due for renewal in November) and BT 40Mgb Broadband on special offer of £10pm (due for renewal in June), plus BT Sport HD."

Hence my observation,and my advice to check this out with BT.

I have seen a number of cases in the past where BT have taken the view i suggested.

bigjohn wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 4:49pm:

The poster says his Telephone Contract ends before his broadband one. " I have BT line rental paid in advance (due for renewal in November) and BT 40Mgb Broadband on special offer of £10pm (due for renewal in June), plus BT Sport HD." Hence my observation,and my advice to check this out with BT. I have seen a number of cases in the past where BT have taken the view i suggested.

But his "line rental paid in advance" is presumably Line Rental Saver, which is non-refundable.

Yes so he has nothing much to lose on that so he could if he wanted  cancel telephony now. But he is still in contract with Broadband and BT have not increased that.So best to check with BT and see what they say. :)

bigjohn wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 5:13pm:

Yes so he has nothing much to lose on that so he could if he wanted  cancel telephony now. But he is still in contract with Broadband and BT have not increased that.So best to check with BT and see what they say. :)

I thought BT is going to increase the Broadband prices as well, or have I mis-understood :-/

More worrying IMHO, is the that, from today, Ofcom have removed the requirement for BT to allow the use of Carrier PreSelect (CPS) and Indirect Access (IA) providers (like 1899, 18866 and 18185).

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/nmr-13/statement/statement-summary

Heinz wrote on Oct 1^st, 2013 at 11:52am:

More worrying IMHO, is the that, from today, Ofcom have removed the requirement for BT to allow the use of Carrier PreSelect (CPS) and Indirect Access (IA) providers (like 1899, 18866 and 18185). http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/nmr-13/statement/statement-summary

BigJohn mentioned this in this thread.

sherbert wrote on Sep 30^th, 2013 at 6:05pm:

bigjohn wrote on Sep 30th, 2013 at 5:13pm: Yes so he has nothing much to lose on that so he could if he wanted  cancel telephony now. But he is still in contract with Broadband and BT have not increased that.So best to check with BT and see what they say. :) I thought BT is going to increase the Broadband prices as well, or have I mis-understood :-/

Yes they are but the poster said he was was on a special fixed offer.

The BT link given by SCV  refers to phones,there are also increases across the board to broadband and BT Vision.

This page has more full details,

https://www.bt.com/static/wa/account/pricechanges/login/login.html
but you have to enter your account and phone number to see your broadband price rise:

bigjohn wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2013 at 5:28pm:

sherbert wrote on Sep 30th, 2013 at 6:05pm: bigjohn wrote on Sep 30th, 2013 at 5:13pm: Yes so he has nothing much to lose on that so he could if he wanted  cancel telephony now. But he is still in contract with Broadband and BT have not increased that.So best to check with BT and see what they say. :) I thought BT is going to increase the Broadband prices as well, or have I mis-understood :-/ Yes they are but the poster said he was was on a special fixed offer. The BT link given by SCV  refers to phones,there are also increases across the board to broadband and BT Vision. This page has more full details, https://www.bt.com/static/wa/account/pricechanges/login/login.html but you have to enter your account and phone number to see your broadband price rise:

That is a very useful link, many thanks. :)

My broadband will be going up 95 pence a month after the discount I get to £15.75 >:(