In reply to a post by hunnymonster:

Surely it is something that would (or should?) come under the terms of unfair contract legislation?

The barrister I quoted earlier was clear that there is nothing in general consumer legislation that prevents mid-term price hikes. Whether there should be is a separate issue. In the particular case of telecoms prices, Ofcom rules are that if a contract change (including prices rises) are to the "material detriment" of the customer, they must be given an opportunity to leave the contract penalty-free. The examples given in the referenced Ofcom doc indicate that Ofcom would only regard it as material detriment if the possibility of increases were not fully explained at the time the contract was signed. If they were properly explained, and the customer signed anyway, then tough.

@Malwaremike

I looked through the thread you referenced (which I hadn't found, sorry, but I didn't look back that far). So far as I can see, it doesn't establish that Ofcom "agreed the principle" of the inflation+x% formula, or any other formula. Nor do the Ofcom docs you reference. They were to a consultation 10 years ago about whether any mid-term price rises, however arrived at, were fair, and resulted in the revised guidance to General Condition 9.6 which I quoted previously (that stuff about material detriment).

Ofcom don't regulate retail prices. They don't have the mandate to. It's supposed to be the market which does that. You might think that they should, but that's a political question that you should maybe raise with your MP. To blame Ofcom for the pricing policies of CPs is inappropriate.

You realise that BT Consumer also includes Plusnet and EE customers?

BT need to find investment and pay taxes from their profits..

In reply to a post by gt94sss2:

You realise that BT Consumer also includes Plusnet and EE customers?

BT need to find investment and pay taxes from their profits..

Hyperoptic need to do exactly the same regarding investment and paying taxes . Yet they still don't increase contract amounts .

I am just curious how they can operate and make a profit yet other isp's constantly change the cost of contracts by adding more to them twice a year .

I am just curious how they can operate and make a profit

They aren't. They are operating at a monster loss.

Edited by FibreBubble (Sat 08-Apr-23 16:32:03)

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

I am just curious how they can operate and make a profit

They aren't. They are operating at a monster loss.

"Monster" that is an understatemet. 2020 - £46m, 2021 - £48m and at the end of 2021, they had just 220,000 users and Average Revenuse Per user of about £26 !

Hyper optic aren’t too bad. You don’t want to see the financial hole that some other large AltNets are currently in.

Anyway back to price rises.
Was talking to a friend, he's with 'NOW broadband', he has no price rise this year.

In reply to a post by burble:

Was talking to a friend, he's with 'NOW broadband', he has no price rise this year.

Despite being part of the Sky network the Now broadband didn’t go up, but the telephone call costs did.
https://www.choose.co.uk/news/2023/now-broadband-con...

In reply to a post by MHC:

What is unfair about it? The clause is there in the contact - fully defined and a potential customer can (should) read it.

I agree with that in principle, and it's why I never caught by PPI: I always carefully read the credit card agreements and ticked the box to opt out.

But what I see is a pretty poor show by the providers. For example, if you go to Plusnet and do an availability check, you'll see a big banner like this:

Full Fibre 145 (big print)
145Mb (big print)
estimated download speed (small print)
£29.99 (big print)
a month* (small print)
24 month contract (medium print)

and there is a drop-down you can expand to see the key features of the product, including some pricing info - the activation fee.

But that asterisk refers to some tiny text in dark grey on light grey, way at the bottom of the page, underneath "Here’s the legal bit"

I would say that the price you pay is the absolute number one key attribute of the product, and it's pretty disgraceful that they hide the true cost in this way.