The UK PostOffice Confirms Line Rental and Phone Call Price Hikes

Consumers who take one of the PostOffice’s phone bundles, most often alongside a broadband bundle, are being informed this week that from 9th November 2015 they too will become the latest ISP subscribers to suffer from the dreaded annual price hikes in line rental and call charges.

At present existing subscribers pay a flat fee for Line Rental of £15 per month, although you can also take their annual pre-paid Line Rental Saver option for just £144 (one off charge) to cover 12 months (equivalent to £12 a month).

The PostOffice’s broadband bundles also include free UK Weekend calls, although you can currently add a Evening & Weekend Calls package for an extra +£1.50 per month or Anytime Calls for +£5.75 per month, but nearly all of these are about to increase in price.

Prices from 9th November 2015

* HomePhone Line Rental with FREE weekend calls will be £16 a month
* Call Connection fee will be 15.5p per call
* Daytime calls to national and local numbers will be 10p per minute
* Calls to most UK mobiles will be 12p per minute
* Our Anytime calls package will be £7 a month
* Our Evening & Weekend calls package will be £2.50

It’s worth pointing out that Line Rental Saver is not mentioned in the increases, although the announced does hint that the current discount will only apply if you take that package “before” 1st February 2016 (i.e. expect Line Rental Saver to see an increase next year).

PostOffice Statement:

“We’ve always done everything possible to give you great value for money and to help keep your bills down.

Historically, we’ve held off changing our prices for as long as possible, even when our competitors raised theirs. We even reduced the cost of our Broadband package earlier this year. However, we’ve had to make a few changes to the price of some of our products and services in order to continue offering all the great benefits that our included within our packages.

Although some prices have increased, you’ll see that our prices are still very good value for money, especially when you compare them to BT.”

It’s worth pointing out that the PostOffice’s line rental is still a bit cheaper than most of the big boys and they also give you a free paper bill as standard, which normally costs £1 or £2 extra with other providers. In addition they also appear set to continue offering free weekend calls to their broadband customers, which is better than their bigger rivals where the service has been sneakily removed.

As usual Ofcom’s guidelines state that mid-contract price hikes, particularly those that run above the level of inflation (most such increases usually do), should give subscribers the option to exit their contract penalty free within 30 days of receiving the price notification letter.