BT said the cost of making a call to UK landlines and 0870 numbers will go from 10.24p a minute to 11p. Set up fees will also rise, from 17.07p to 19p, meaning a one minute call from a BT landline will cost a minimum of 30p. The price of the popular Unlimited Anytime Calls plan, which gives unlimited calls to most UK landlines, is increasing by 6.9%.Most BT broadband customers – 6.2 million – use the copper network, the standard price for which will go from £13 to £15. Another 3.7 million use fibre broadband, branded Infinity, and will see their bills rise an average of £2.05.John Petter, the chief executive of BT Consumer, said the company had tried to address customer concerns about faster broadband speeds and improved online security.
The retail division of BT has, in an earlier than expected move, today unveiled a raft of new inflation busting price hikes (increases range from +5.6% to +20%) for their consumer phone, TV and broadband services that will come into force from 3rd July 2016. Line rental is now £18.99 a month.The provider usually announces their annual changes a little later than this. For example, back in 2015 BT announced them in July and introduced them for September, then in 2014 they unveiled them in August and introduced the rises from December (note: new subscribers usually get hit with them much sooner). Suffice to say that it’s been years since they jumped ahead like this.
Homeowners will be able to have a broadband connection without taking a phone line under plans for internet-only services to be trialled by BT.Many homes in Britain no longer regularly use traditional fixed phones to make calls, instead relying on mobile phones or more innovative internet-based communications services such as Skype, WhatsApp and Apple’s FaceTime.Increasingly, many homes find a phone line more of an annoyance than a need. Ofcom, the regulator, found that close to nine in 10 households reported nuisance calls at least once a month.BT’s Openreach will put a service under trial this autumn that will uncouple the traditional voice service from fibre broadband for the telecoms groups that use its national network.As well as BT itself, companies such as Vodafone, Sky and TalkTalk will be able to test broadband-only services, including their own internet-based voice services to compete with other internet messaging formats.
The call revenue is going down because of inflation busting annual price rises, yes mobile's obviously have an impact, but if BT were to undercut mobile phones I am sure more people would use landlines for voice.
The majority of the latest round of price rises take effect on 3rd July 2016 and the list of key changes is: Line rental going up to £18.99/month from £17.99/month Line rental saver rises to £205.08 (equivalent of £17.09/month Call set up fee rises to 19p Weekday calls will be 11p/minute BT Kids, Kids Extra and Music rising to £4/month Standard price for Unlimited ADSL2+ will be £20/month Standard price for Unlimited Infinity 1 will be £26/month Standard price for Unlimited Infinity 2 will be £32.50/month Standard price for Unlimited Infinity 3 will be £45/month Standard price for Unlimited Infinity 4 will be £52/month BT Total Entertainment will be £16/month
After a bit of checking we can now confirm that BT have moved to soften the blow by making a number of changes, with the key ones being as follows.* Existing BTInfinity 1 (FTTC) customers (all 1 million+ of them) with a download speed of up to 38Mbps will now be offered a “free speed boost” to 52Mbps.* More than a million broadband customers “will each get a free upgrade to Unlimited usage or a higher allowance” (worth between £43 and £108 a year), although BT don’t spell out precisely which packages this applies too.* All broadband customers will get free BT Net Protect security software, which was previously only “free” on their more expensive packages.This year BT are also promising to fix line faults faster for all of their voice and broadband customers by “upgrading them to a higher level of service, which means we will send an engineer 24 hours faster than before, if a home visit is needed“.
And if you are an existing BT Infinity 1 or Unlimited BT Infinity 1 customer, BT has started upgrading lines that will support the higher speed, so you don’t have to do anything to enjoy the speed increase. BT will let you know when it’s done.
