BT has revealed that it intends to increase monthly telephone line rental charges by an extra £1 (£12.50) per month from 1st April 2009. Sadly it's not an April fool’s joke and they are also raising the standard daytime calls rate by 15% to 4.5ppm (pence per minute) for those without a specific 12-month contract based calls plan.

Earlier this month BT surprised many by becoming the first UK telephone company to make calls to national 0870 and local 0845 rate numbers free for its 14 million call package customers. It seems to be giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Then again, they do have a next-gen broadband network to build and profit warnings to worry about.