Budget conscious broadband ISP TalkTalk has informed ISPreview that they’re preparing to follow Ofcom’s new guidance on inflation-linked annual broadband price rises. In practice, this means that new and re-contracting (upgrading) customers will be hit by a flat annual price increase of £3 (monthly) each April.
As above, the new policy is designed to reflect the regulator’s recent move to BAN broadband ISPs and mobile operators from doing mid-contract price hikes that are linked to confusing inflation and percentage-based changes (here). BT, Plusnet, EE and Vodafone have already adopted an identical approach to the one that TalkTalk are about to introduce (details below)
However, Ofcom’s change was never designed to stop mid-contract hikes completely (it’s more about making future pricing clearer and simpler), but it did require providers to tell customers precisely what any future price increases would be when they sign-up (“in pounds and pence“). This rules out changes to core subscription prices that are linked to unknown future inflation values or percentages.
From 12th August 2024, customers joining or re-contracting with TalkTalk will now see the monthly amount they pay for their broadband increase by £3 annually in April each year. Customers who joined TalkTalk before 12th August 2024 will continue to see the price of their broadband contract increase by CPI, plus 3.7% in April (this applies to in-contract and out-of-contract customers).
But the provider does note that their financially vulnerable customers will continue to be excluded from the annual broadband price rise. TalkTalk claims that almost a quarter of their customers did not receive a mid-contract broadband price increase this year due to exemptions, even though the provider’s own wholesale costs did increase.
Susie Buckridge, TalkTalk CEO, told ISPreview:
“For more than 20 years TalkTalk has focused on delivering value for customers. We remain fully committed to providing great value broadband and ensuring our customers have a clear understanding of the price they will pay throughout their contract.
We will be moving away from an inflation-linked annual broadband price rise to a flat increase following Ofcom’s new guidance. We believe this will help improve transparency and consumer understanding of the change.”
The concern for consumers is that this approach does have its flaws, such as with the fact that it may make some cheaper packages more expensive than they would have been under the old system (particularly now that CPI inflation has returned to a more normal level). The fact that providers can also specify a specific rise ahead of time will also do little to dampen calls for an outright ban on mid-contract hikes in favour of fixed term pricing – something we’d support.
At this point it’s worth remembering that not all providers adopt the same approach as the biggest players and many smaller ISPs, particularly newer alternative networks (altnets), often promote packages with simple fixed price terms. We should also point out that Ofcom won’t formally begin to enforce this change on the market until 17th January 2025 and TalkTalk are working toward full compliance by then too.
The new policy is typically only focused upon the core subscription price of a package, thus call charges and any paid add-ons may adopt a different approach.