UK ISP Direct Save Telecom Pledges NO Broadband Price Hikes

Home phone and internet provider Direct Save Telecom UK has pledged not to increase their broadband prices, which is despite the country’s “ever-increasing data needs” continuing to only go in one direction – upwards.

The ISP claims that typical data usage among the “vast majority” of their customers has, over the past 10 years, increased from between 1.5-5GB to 3.5-11GB (GigaBytes) per month.

Stavros Tsolakis, CEO of Direct Save Telecom, said:

“In the space of ten years, the average household’s monthly data requirements has increased dramatically and with the new products coming out on the market this is set to increase even more.

If Netflix, and others, get a fraction of the success in the UK, that they enjoyed in the US, data consumption is about to go through the roof. So broadband providers might well see this as an opportunity to cash in, either by increasing prices or by reducing their data caps.

If our customers have any worries, they can discuss their profile as an internet user with our UK based, skilled, Customer Services to ensure that they are on the best possible package for their needs. We have broadband packages with 20Gb, 60Gb or 100Gb usage allowances and these should meet the demands of 99% of all home users as demand increases over the next few years.”

A recent report from Ofcom in 2011 also found that data consumption had increased “seven fold in the last five years“, with residential fixed line broadband customers using on average 17GB of data per month.

In fairness much of this increase can be balanced against the development and adoption of more sophisticated internet platforms, which has helped to keep bandwidth prices under control (albeit not by as much as many ISPs would like).

Last year also saw a number of ISPs raising their prices and the new generation of superfast broadband packages often cost more too, partly to help offset an expected increase in usage.