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Jersey Telecom charges frozen for a year

Monday 9 January, 2012

By Duncan Heaney

Channel Islands Authority caps line rental and call charges.

The Channel Islands Competition Regulatory Authority (CICRA) has issued a freeze on phone charges until 2013. Jersey Telecom has confirmed it will not increase landline rental fees for the rest of the year.

CICRA has also set a cap on the prices of local, UK and international calls, while it conducts an assessment of the cost of line rental costs in Jersey and Guernsey. The organisation ultimately hopes that other providers will enter the landline market on the Islands.

John Curran, executive director of CICRA explained the freeze: “Since the current price control was put in place in 2008, JT had implemented significant cost-cutting and the regulator wanted to assess whether these savings had been fed through to the prices consumers pay.

“Given the likelihood of a detailed assessment being made of line rental charges and further investigation being undertaken into JT's separated accounts, we believe the fairest course of action at this time is to freeze charges.”

Jersey Telecom said that line rental costs went up by just 2.7% in 2011, and that local calls had cost the same for 16 years. Daragh McDermott, director of corporate affairs for Jersey Telecom acknowledged the CICRA assessment.

He said: “We note their comments about passing on savings to customers, which is something JT is pleased to be able to do whenever it can.”

Jersey Telecom isn’t the only phone provider to freeze fees in 2012. Late last year, BT increased the cost of monthly line rental, select call packages, broadband and UK calls by around 5%, but announced these prices would be frozen until 2013.