Basically everyone is using more data. They would have to move to usage based billing which isn't happening.

Their costs have increased substantially for sure, though. They pay their supplier per Mbps and costs to provide data have stayed about the same or even risen per Mbps.

Unless companies have a sweet profit margin already built in that they can take a hit on prices are under pressure.

How do they justify increasing phone bills though?
How are those people using more data?

Something wrong with the 'CAPS LOCK' button on your keyboard?

Please let's keep things civil

Shouldn't they have factored this into the cost of running their service? You can do the math for how much data one account could possibly use in a given time period (assuming they are always using the maximum up/down speed all of the time which I know is not true). I know the answer is, no, because they do not expect everyone to be using their Internet 24/7 and it is supposed to be a contented service but the reality is otherwise.

BT provides a road network, if it costs them too much money to transit someone else's road or their road is falling apart for some reason, then that is the real issue here.

If you build a road on the basis you expect x number of cars to travel over it during it's lifetime and that number doubles then you will end up having to spend more money on repairs and potentially replace it earlier.

I suspect BT knew that usage would increase but if they had charged 5 years ago for the level of usage now then services would have been much more expensive. You would expect to increase the charges as the costs increase.

However, whether it can truly be said that the increase charge is down to increased usage is I believe highly debatable and an over simplification. I can see charges going up because of items such as electricity charges increasing, pay increases, rent/rates increase, etc, etc. All of this adds up - whether it adds up to the amount BT are increasing by again is a possible discussion point but not one I suspect anyone here has access to the details to actually answer.

In reply to a post by smouty:

How do they justify increasing phone bills though?
How are those people using more data?

To a considerable extent because the phone rental part with PSTN of the phone/broadband bundles offsets the actual (selling) price of the broadband. Openreach Wholesale Line Rental to CPs is currently £8.06pm, (+Vat that they reclaim but have to pass on to their customers) = £9.67.

Rising on 1st April to £8.70pm, plus Vat = £10.44.

That's a 7.94% increase!

Rental without PSTN, i.e. VOIP/Digital Voice which is provided by third parties currently £4.55pm, plus Vat = £5.46

Rising on 1st April to £4.775, plus Vat £5.73. A 4.95% increase.

Edited by pluralist (Fri 21-Jan-22 18:17:12)

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

To quote BBC news:
"BT has said most customers will see bills rise by more than 9% from the end of March as households are squeezed by cost of living pressures.
The telecoms giant said broadband and phone bills will jump by 9.3% following a "dramatic increase" in data usage over the last few years.
Affected customers will pay an extra £3.50 a month on average from 31 March."

BT customers are not the only ones Talk Talk recent emailed customer to tell them prices were to raise annually due to a huge increases in usage by customers -

From 2022, each April we’ll adjust the broadband subscription amount you pay per month by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rate of inflation plus 3.7% (which is lower than Sky, BT & Virgin’s current price rise commitments).

The CPI rate that we use is announced in January each year and we will adjust your bill by this amount plus an additional 3.7%.
This change will apply to all our broadband packages (existing and new customers).

For example, if the CPI rate announced in January 2022 was 0.6%, all relevant customers’ monthly plan prices from April 2022 will increase by 4.3%.

If the CPI figure is negative in the relevant year we will only increase the charges by 3.7%

Edited by Jack_Hackett (Fri 21-Jan-22 20:24:31)

What gets me about all of these, why CPI PLUS several percent?

In reply to a post by pluralist:

What gets me about all of these, why CPI PLUS several percent?

Quite. What is more, is that with just a few exceptions it is 3.9%; is that not a cartel?

It does not escape my attention either that if CPI is a negative value in any one year, there is no decrease in price.

These price increases generally apply even if you are in a contract period, nor are they a "get me out of the contract card without penalty". We seem to be very much bordering on an unfair contract.

Then we have our lowest ever broadband prices seen on TV that if you sign up today, at say £20pm, then three months later the price goes up to £22pm and of course it was only a six month promotional offer, so rises to the regular rate of £33pm, then six months further on there could be another price rise of around £3. So in 24 months the price jumps from £20pm to £36pm. Why do we all put up with all this nonsense?

I almost forgot that all prices above are ex VAT. So that advertised £20pm is really almost double 24 moths later at a tad under £40.