Home phone News

BT to increase daytime call rates

Friday 17 July, 2009

By becca.talbot@consumerchoices.co.uk

BT home phone customers face another price rise as the company is set to increase its daytime call charges.

BT (www.bt.com), Britain’s biggest home phone provider, has said it is increasing its daytime call rate to 5.25p a minute on 1 October 2009 for residential customers.

BT’s call set-up fee – a one-off charge for connecting a call – is also increasing to 9.05p.

BT has already increased prices once this year, putting up the cost of making a daytime call twice in six months.

On 1 April 2009, the telecommunications giant hiked the price of its monthly line rental from £11.50 to £12.50, as well as increasing daytime call rates from 3.91p a minute to 4.5p a minute. The call set-up fee also rose from 6.85p to 8p.

The company has advised customers to consider whether they would be better off moving to its anytime calls package “in order to avoid increases in daytime call prices and the set-up fee.”

A spokesman for BT said: “We believe in offering flat rate packages which offer customers peace of mind, and allow customers to avoid charges like set-up fees and daytime calls.”

BT’s Unlimited Anytime Plan costs £4.95 a month – just 17p a day - and includes all calls to UK local and national landlines, as well as calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers any time.

He continued: “Our anytime package is the cheapest offer on the market, undercutting all our rivals, including Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, and Tiscali.”

In a separate move, the company is reducing the cost to call 0870 numbers outside of customers’ calling plans.

BT was the first home phone provider to give customers free calls to 0845 and 0870 numbers within their calling plan. However from 1 August 2009, the daytime rate to call an 0870 number will decrease from 5.88p to 4.5p a minute, and the evening rate will decrease from 1.47p to 1.45p per minute.