Watchdog ‘must stop phone and broadband bills rising 10 per cent’

THE telecoms watchdog is under pressure to step in and halt price rises of over 10 per cent for broadband and mobile phone contracts.

People could end up paying more than £100 a year extra, and BT has already announced an increase of 9.3 per cent.

Millions of people are signed up to phone, broadband and mobile contracts that allow their provider to put up prices by the rate of inflation plus a further percentage.

Virgin Media is raising mobile phone tariffs on April 1 by the retail prices index (RPI) measure of inflation, which is now .5 per cent, plus 3.9 per cent. That adds up to a total 11.4 per cent.

The figure could be even higher, because the RPI rate used for the calculation will be the figure for this month, which could be more than .5 per cent.

Virgin said that it was ‘reviewing our pricing to fuel further investment in our network and services’.

Lyndsey Burton, the managing director of Choose, a price comparison website, said: ‘Ofcom either needs to ban mid-contract price hikes completely or, at the very least, they must set a cap that more fairly distributes inflationary costs.’

Meanwhile, the AA has found that petrol prices fell by only half a penny at the pumps last month even though wholesale prices fell by 8p.

Petrol retailers were accused of fleecing motorists by cashing in on the Christmas getaway and failing to pass on more of the savings at the pumps. The AA said that they were making more than £11 on every £55 tank of fuel.

The cost of filling up could soon rise even further as the price of crude oil approaches $90 a barrel.