According to the comparison website Uswitch, 47 million customers in the UK are going to be hit by mobile and broadband price rises in April. This comes at a time when the general cost of living is rising dramatically, with everything from groceries to council tax rising in price.
The figure, when split into the two categories, includes 11 million broadband customers and 36 million mobile customers being hit by price rises. Uswitch said that annual broadband bills could rise by £27.19 and annual mobile bills by £24.23.
As a switching website, Uswitch has provided some tips on how to put off the price hikes for another year. It said that the majority who are in contract will be unable to avoid the price rises without paying a penalty fee, but for others, it provides the following tips:
- Sky Broadband, Direct Save Telecom, Virgin Media and Giganet all allow customers to leave penalty free if they wish within the 30-day window of the price rise announcement - although this does not apply to Sky TV customers.
- Vodafone and Community Fibre are freezing prices until 2025 for those switching now ahead of the April increases.
- Smaller regional alternative networks, such as Trooli, Zen Internet, Hyperoptic, Hull Fibre, Link Broadband, Open Fibre, Squirrel Internet, Infinics and Yayzi offer full fibre deals and have committed to not hiking their costs for consumers throughout their current contract agreements.
- Mobile providers Giffgaff, Talkmobile, Lebara, SMARTY, iD Mobile, Lyca, Asda Mobile, VOXI, Honest Mobile and Sky Mobile are committed to not increasing their prices mid-contract.
Despite Uswitch’s comments about penalty fees for leaving a contract early, it did mention that it’s worth checking the small print of your agreement, as some providers do let you quit the contract without a fee. It said that Sky Broadband, Direct Save Telecom, Virgin Media, and Giganet are examples of companies that will let you exit the contract penalty-free within 30 days of a price rise announcement.
Source: Uswitch