Phone and broadband may rise 10%

PHONE and broadband price rises are set to hit double digits next year as telecoms providers add further pain to already stretched household budgets.

Most phone and broadband contracts have clauses in their small print stating that bills will rise every March by around 3.9 per cent plus the inflation rate in January. If inflation is four per cent, bills could rise in March by close to eight per cent.

For someone with a mobile phone, home phone and broadband contract, this could easily add up to an extra £100 or more just on annual telecoms bills.

Price comparison service Uswitch and our sister publication Thisismoney.co.uk has crunched the numbers for typical phone bills.

They found that a BT broadband customer would pay an extra £25.50 a year and a mobile phone customer with a handset £35.55 a year if prices rise by 4 per cent inflation plus 3.9 per cent.

Average monthly broadband, paid TV, mobile and broadband bills are currently £79.22 a month. Households would pay an extra £75.10 a year on average.